The Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management today released its Strategic Vision 2021-2031, a blueprint to the program’s anticipated accomplishments over the next decade that will protect the public and environment.
Office of Environmental Management
April 13, 2021
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management today released its Strategic Vision 2021-2031, a blueprint to the program’s anticipated accomplishments over the next decade that will protect the public and environment.
The Strategic Vision outlines goals for 2021-2031, focused on safety, environmental cleanup priorities, innovation, and improved performance. EM is working to fulfill the commitment to clean up the environment in communities that supported past national security and energy research programs so they can continue to grow and thrive.
“EM has its sights set on the future,” said William “Ike” White, Acting Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management. “We have many goals at our sites, including transformational progress in addressing tank waste challenges, demolishing contaminated buildings, remediating contaminated soil and groundwater, safely managing and disposing of waste, and completing work at projects and sites.”
Built on successes achieved in recent years, EM is entering a new era across the cleanup complex. The Strategic Vision 2021-2031, developed with feedback from regulators, tribal nations, local communities, and other partners, is an update to the inaugural edition issued in 2020.
“EM values and seeks the diverse views and opinions of all of those who have a shared interest in our mission,” White said. “EM looks forward to continuing to work with state and local governments, tribal nations, federal and state regulators, and local communities to advance our mutual goals of safe, effective cleanup and fiscal responsibility.”
EM’s vision for its cleanup sites over the next decade includes:
- Completing legacy cleanup activities at the Nevada National Security Site, the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action project in Moab, Utah and the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
- Initiating radioactive tank waste treatment at the Hanford Site in Washington state, as well as completing significant risk reduction activities, such as placing the last of the former production reactors into interim safe storage.
- Emptying and closing 22 of 51 underground waste tanks at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and completing disposal of remaining legacy transuranic waste.
- Completing the treatment of remaining liquid sodium-bearing waste at the Idaho National Laboratory Site, along with completing targeted buried waste exhumation and shipments of remaining legacy transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for disposal.
- Completing disposal of remaining legacy transuranic waste and uranium-233 at the Oak Ridge site in Tennessee, along with completing construction of the site’s new Mercury Treatment Facility.
- Completing demolition of the former Main Plant Process Building at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York.
- Demolishing two of three former uranium enrichment process buildings at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in southern Ohio.
- Completing deactivation activities at the C-333 former uranium enrichment process building and demolishing the former C-400 Cleaning Building at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky.
Most importantly, EM will continue to perform work activities with a strong safety culture that integrates worker and public health, safety, and environmental requirements.