Many Voices Working for the Community Oak Ridge |
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Many Voices Working for the Community Oak Ridge |
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Approved August 3-4, 2002, Meeting Minutes
The Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board (ORSSAB) held
its annual planning retreat on
Members Present
Ben Adams
Jake Alexander
Dick Berry
Donna Campbell
Amy DeMint
Luther Gibson, Jr.
Pat Hill
Bob McLeod
John Million
David Mosby
Norman Mulvenon
Luis Revilla
Charles Washington
1Student representative
Members Absent
Jeanne Bonner
Jenna Carignan1
Heather Cothron
John Kennerly
Steve Kopp
George Rimel
Kerry Trammell
Deputy
Designated Federal Official and Ex-Officios Present
Pat Halsey, DOE-ORO
Melinda Holland, Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation2
Connie Jones,
John
Gary Riner, DOE-ORO3
Ralph Skinner, DOE-ORO
2Present
August 2 only
3Present August 3 only
Others Present
Sheree
Black, SSAB support office
Jim McBrayer, Bechtel Jacobs Company, LLC
Pete Osborne, SSAB support office
Doug Sarno, The Perspectives Group, Inc.
ANNUAL PLANNING RETREAT
Doug Sarno, meeting facilitator, led discussion of FY 2003 work
plan topics proposed by DOE, EPA, and TDEC. Items were evaluated on four criteria: (1)
importance to ORSSAB and the public, (2) opportunity for impact, (3) what information will
be needed, and (4) when is action likely. A listing of topics and a summary of discussion
follows (transcriptions of meeting flip charts are included as Attachment 1 to these
minutes).
Topic |
Discussion |
Committee referred to |
Water Resources Restoration Program (formerly the Integrated
Water Quality Program) |
Data from this program are reported in the annual Remediation
Effectiveness Report. A presentation at a Board meeting is needed to educate members and
answer questions such as: How are resources for this program being spent? What is the
program achieving? How is it impacting decisions? |
Environmental Restoration |
Budget and prioritization |
This issue should be addressed by the entire Board but put on
hold until DOE prepares its life cycle baseline. The Board may want to find out how are
other sites perform this activity. |
Chair or Vice Chair will champion issue |
Land Use Boundaries/ Property Transfers |
The DOE Land Use Planning Focus Group has been working on the
land use issue near ETTP. Their report will be complete by the end of September. The
challenge for ORSSAB is to understand broader land use issues and perhaps investigate what
risks are associated with various parcels and with releasing them from DOE control. |
Stewardship |
Recyclable Materials |
A decision to resume recycling on radiologically contaminated
materials will be made sometime in the future by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The
decision affects huge amounts of metal scrap. Timing on the issue is unknown. |
Waste Management |
Media For Records |
This is an ongoing stewardship issue at the Oak Ridge Reservation
(ORR) and is also being addressed around the DOE complex. |
Stewardship |
DOE Order 435.1 |
This order requires monitoring of newly generated waste and that
it be disposed of within 1 year of generation. An associated issue is that DOE has
historically underfunded low-level waste (LLW) disposal at the ORR. Most legacy LLW at the
ORR has disposal outlets, but there is little funding for its disposal. |
Waste Management |
Funding Inequities |
ORR projects go largely unnoticed by DOE-Headquarters when it
cites cleanup progress and potential hazards, despite the fact that the ORR has the
largest volume of remote-handled transuranic waste in the DOE complex. Smaller sites
(e.g., Rocky Flats) get proportionally more cleanup funding. This issue should be
addressed by the Board but put on hold until issues concerning accelerated cleanup plans
are set. |
General Board Issue |
EMWMF |
The Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF)
will likely be expanded to its approved limits per the facility’s Record of Decision
(ROD). Expansion to meet accelerated cleanup plan goals is a concern because schedules and
loading plans will have to be altered. |
Waste Management |
Cumulative Impacts of Waste Loading |
In FY 2002 the Waste Management Committee began looking into the
cumulative impacts of waste loading to the |
Waste Management |
Bear Creek Valley Burial Grounds |
The uranium in the burial grounds exceeds waste acceptance
criteria at EMWMF, so the material cannot be sent there. The question, then, is whether to
leave it in place. The issue will be addressed in a ROD but not this year. |
Environmental Restoration |
DOE Emergency Preparedness |
This is a general awareness issue, although transportation of
hazardous or radiological materials may be of particular interest to the Board.
Awareness issue |
Waste Management |
Accelerated Cleanup Plan |
Several documents and updates to documents will be issued this
year, and they will be a top priority for the Board. They include: ·
Performance Management Plan ·
Comprehensive Waste Disposition Plan
(9/02) ·
Balance of Cleanup Plan (3/03) |
Environmental Restoration |
UF6 Disposal |
The UF6 cylinders must be moved for ETTP closure, so
DOE must begin shipping in 2003. A decision on where to build the conversion plant(s) has
not been made yet. The Board’s input to DOE may be to get the cylinders moved to
expedite ETTP closure and general risk reduction at the ORR. |
Waste Management |
CERCLA Documents |
Approximately 12 documents will be this year issued, and it
will be important for the Board to supply comments on them to DOE. |
Environmental Restoration/ |
Groundwater |
The final ROD issued at the ORR will address groundwater, so this
issue is long term. Assumptions are that natural attenuation will take care of some
contamination, but at least one or more technologies will be employed in any remediation
strategy. The Board may wish to study those technology decisions. |
Environmental Restoration |
Stewardship |
Three documents were noted as possible topics for ORSSAB review: ·
ORR Stewardship Strategic Plan ·
Remediation Effectiveness Report ·
DOE-Headquarters Long-Term Stewardship
Strategic Plan, dated June 2002 A Site Transition Framework document will also be available, but
it applies only to Mound and Fernald. However, it will give readers an idea of what may
occur at the ORR. |
Stewardship |
Transfer of Newly Generated Waste |
ORR is the last DOE site to transition responsibility for newly
generated wastes to the generators. TDEC suggested that the Board may want to give input
on the transition plans. |
Waste Management |
TSCAI |
Permit renewal and risk assessments are coming up this year. |
Waste Management |
Waste Disposition |
The Oak Ridge Comprehensive Waste Disposition Plan will give
disposal locations, schedules, and quantities for all EM Program wastes and will be the
key to determining what will go into EMWMF. The plan will be updated annually, so the
Board may want to review it every year. The |
Waste Management |
Environmental Justice |
Mr. Washington asked that all committees consider environmental
justice when reviewing EM Program activities, and he distributed a handout on the topic
(Attachment 2). Mr. Boyd mentioned that DOE’s prime contractors had recently
briefed DOE senior managers on their environmental justice activities and that a summary
of those briefings might be available at a future ORSSAB meeting. |
All committees |
Following are other topics discussed at the retreat.
Public Outreach¾Several suggestions were offered to improve the Board=s ongoing public outreach activities. These include focusing more
outreach on outlying communities and adding more emphasis on informing the public that
“dirt is moving.” EPA showed interest in having ORSSAB establish more dialog
with other groups about EM Program concerns. Suggested groups include Save Our Cumberland
Mountains, Coalition for a Healthy Environment, Environmental Quality Advisory Board,
National Association for Advancement of Colored People, and Oak Ridge Reservation Health
Effects Subcommittee.
Better Preparation¾Understanding the complexities of the various aspects of the EM
Program is a challenge for many Board members. Not everyone is well informed, and some
members “get in on the middle of story” because they first hear of a topic when
it comes before the Board as a recommendation. Board members must understand
recommendations to have a basis from which to ask the right questions. Solutions to this
problem include summarizing information better and providing members with more background
material. More knowledgeable members need to help new members by mentoring and helping
integrate them into ORSSAB activities.
Board Operations¾Several issues were identified regarding how the Board operates:
staying on topic, spending less time on process issues, improving outreach, educating the
public about EM, reducing member turnover, reevaluating priorities regularly, achieving a
more balanced membership, being more aware of the Board’s advocate role, allowing
voting at committee meetings for nonmembers, and improving the Board/committee
relationship.
Voting at Committee Meetings by Non-SSAB Members¾This issue is a special concern for the Stewardship Committee,
which has many non-SSAB members. Allowing non-SSAB members to vote would foster a more
inclusive atmosphere and might bolster attendance at committee meetings because the public
would have greater input to recommendations made. The Board would still have the final say
in any recommendations brought forward from committees, so the likelihood of non-SSAB
members “hijacking” a recommendation would be negligible.
Ms. Black distributed the results of a poll she had conducted to
determine non-SSAB member voting privileges at SSABs around the DOE complex (Attachment
3). Three of the other eight boards allow non-SSAB members to vote at committee
meetings.
Further discussion of the topic was deferred to the August 3
Board meeting (see below).
Support Issues¾Quicker, better access to information and follow-up on Board
member questions were identified as top support issues.
Committee Structure¾The group discussed changing the ORSSAB committee makeup but took
no action, preferring to keep the current committee structure. Members signed up for the
following committees:
·
Environmental Restoration: Jake Alexander, Amy DeMint, Bob
McLeod, Dave Mosby, Norman Mulvenon, Kerry Trammell
·
Stewardship: Ben Adams, Donna Campbell, John Million, Norman
Mulvenon
·
Waste Management:
BOARD MEETING
Deputy Designated Federal Official
and Ex-Officio Comments
Ms. Halsey announced that the schedule for the upcoming
semiannual EM SSAB Chairs Meeting had been set. The meeting, which will be hosted by Oak
Ridge, will begin with a tour of the ORR on Thursday, October 17, followed by a full-day
meeting on Friday, October 18, and a half-day meeting on Saturday, October 19. Members
were encouraged to attend.
Public Comment
Mr. Joe Carson, a nuclear safety
engineer with DOE-ORO, distributed a packet of correspondence relating to his experiences
as a “whistleblower” on safety issues at DOE-ORO (Attachment 4). Mr. Carson
asked that the SSAB aid him in pushing DOE to step up its diligence on safety matters and
that the Board look into public health and safety issues that DOE may not be adequately
addressing, some of which could be EM related.
Announcements and Other Board
Business
The next Board meeting will be Thursday, September 12, at the
Minutes of the
The Board approved “Recommendations on Remediation
Effectiveness Reports General Outline” (Attachment 5) following amendment to add the
phrase “and also incorporates ongoing remediation activities for that fiscal
year” to second sentence in the second paragraph of the “Background”
section.
The Board approved a request to DOE for inclusion as a consulting
party on historic preservation issues at the ORR (Attachment 6).
The Board discussed whether to pursue comment on the recently
announced changes to the DOE-ORO organizational structure. Consensus was reached that the
change could feasibly affect the way remediation of the ORR is carried out, and the Board
agreed to write a letter to Secretary Abraham expressing ORSSAB’s concerns. Mr.
Mulvenon volunteered to draft a strawman letter for circulation to Board members for
comment. The letter will go before the Executive Committee at its August meeting for
review before being presented at the September Board meeting for consideration for
approval.
FY 2003 Board officers were elected: Chair - Dave Mosby; Vice
Chair - Norman Mulvenon; Secretary - Donna Campbell.
The Board discussed allowing non-SSAB members to vote on issues
at ORSSAB committee meetings and elected to instruct the Board Process Committee to look
into revising the ORSSAB bylaws to allow full membership (including the right to vote) to
members of the public who participate on ORSSAB committees, with the stipulation that the
committee Chair be an ORSSAB member.
The date of the next annual planning retreat was set for August 1-2, 2003.
Mr. Trammell reported that the Community Reuse Organization of
East Tennessee had lost more leases lately than it had gained. Mr. Trammell offered to
supply members with information on leases and financial statements.
Motions
Mr. Washington was absent for all votes.
M8/3/02.1
Mr. Mosby moved to approve the minutes of the July 10, 2002,
Board meeting. Mr. Revilla seconded the motion, and the motion was unanimously approved.
M8/3/02.2
Mr. Mulvenon moved to approve “Recommendations on
Remediation Effectiveness Reports General Outline.” Mr. Revilla seconded the motion.
Mr. Berry moved to incorporate verbiage suggested by Ms. Halsey to the second
paragraph of the “Background” section. Mr. Million seconded the motion to amend,
and the amended motion was unanimously approved.
M8/3/02.3
Mr. Mulvenon moved to approve a request to DOE for inclusion as a
consulting party on historic preservation issues at the ORR. Mr. Alexander seconded the
motion, and the motion was unanimously approved.
M8/3/02.4
Mr. Adams moved to close nominations for FY 2003 Board officers
with Dave Mosby, Norman Mulvenon, and Donna Campbell as nominees for Chair, Vice Chair,
and Secretary, respectively. Ms. Hill seconded the motion, and the motion was unanimously
approved.
M8/3/02.5
Mr. Alexander moved to write a letter to Secretary Abraham
expressing ORSSAB’s concerns about the recently announced changes to the DOE-ORO
organizational structure. Mr. Adams seconded the motion, and the motion was unanimously
approved.
M8/3/02.6
Mr. Alexander moved to instruct the Board Process Committee to
look into revising the ORSSAB bylaws to allow full membership (including the right to
vote) to members of the public who participate on ORSSAB committees, with the stipulation
that the Chair of the committee be an ORSSAB member. Mr. Million seconded the motion,
and the motion was approved by a vote of 12
in favor, 2 abstentions (Mr. Berry and Ms. Hill).
M8/3/02.7
Mr. Alexander moved that the next annual planning retreat and
Board meeting be held August 1 and 2, 2003. Ms. Hill seconded the motion, and the motion
was unanimously approved.
The meeting adjourned at 4:00 p.m.
Attachments (6). Available upon request from the ORSSAB support
office.
Respectfully submitted: Donna Campbell, Secretary
DLC/plo
Action Items
1. The
Board Process Committee to look into revising the ORSSAB bylaws to allow full membership
(including the right to vote) to members of the public who participate on ORSSAB
committees, with the stipulation that the Chair of the committee be an ORSSAB member.
2. Staff will add more information about
public outreach presentations in the ORSSAB meeting minutes. Ongoing
