Page 1 GAO-24-107096 MERCURY CLEANUP AT OAK RIDGE
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that from 1950 through 1982
over 700,000 pounds of mercury was released to the surrounding environment
during nuclear weapons production at the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-
12), one of three sites at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. In addition to
contaminating soil and surface water, these releases also contaminated
structures on the site. An additional 1.3 million pounds of mercury are
unaccounted for at Y-12 and may also have been lost to the environment. DOE’s
Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified mercury contamination at Y-12
as the greatest environmental risk at Oak Ridge due to offsite migration of
mercury in streams and continued high levels of mercury in local fish populations.
OREM oversees mercury cleanup at Oak Ridge, which includes remediating
mercury contamination sources that impact the surface waters of Upper East
Fork Poplar Creek and deactivating and decommissioning (D&D) four large
mercury-contaminated buildings at Y-12, which are adjacent to active National
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) missions. The current mission of Y-12
includes NNSA assignments in stockpile stewardship and nuclear
nonproliferation as well as special production support to other programs. NNSA’s
plans to use the remediated land and expand the national security mission
depend on the completion of mercury cleanup at Y-12. According to DOE’s 2017
Strategic Plan for Mercury Remediation at Oak Ridge, OREM has been
conducting mercury cleanup activities since the mid-1980s, including cleaning
and relining storm sewers, and removing contaminated sediment and piping.
Senate Report 118-58 includes a provision for GAO to assess OREM’s efforts to
clean up mercury contamination at Oak Ridge. We are providing information on
the scope, cost, and schedule of planned mercury cleanup at Y-12; the
regulatory framework guiding mercury cleanup; risks associated with mercury
cleanup; and OREM’s mercury cleanup technology development efforts.
• OREM estimated in 2023 that the remaining cleanup will cost at least $3.2
billion and continue through 2043, with some of the most challenging work yet
to be conducted.
• OREM manages mercury cleanup risks by project, which does not
comprehensively reflect the potential impact of similar risks that OREM has
identified across multiple projects and omits key interdependent risks. We
recommend that OREM elevate risk management to a programmatic level
from a project level for mercury cleanup to enhance the understanding of
comprehensive risk impacts and interdependencies.
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Cleanup: Opportunities
Enhance Risk Management and
-24-107096
Report to Congressional Committees
12, 2024
