LEXINGTON, Ky. – EM’s Annual Site Environmental Reports (ASER) are complex technical documents comprising several hundred pages of information about the former gaseous diffusion plants near Piketon, Ohio and Paducah, Ky.

   To some area high school students, the reports are something else.

   “It was pretty intimidating,” said Andrew Trego, who was an 18-year-old senior in Carla Evans’ Advanced Environmental Science class at Waverly High School in southern Ohio. The class took part in Ohio University’s program to turn the ASER for EM’s Portsmouth Site into a more comprehensible document to be distributed publicly throughout the region.

   “They thought it was hard, but we broke the class into four groups and we got through it,” Evans said. 

   The class recently completed the project after working on it throughout the 2015-2016 school year. Ohio University will print and publish the student summary of the ASER in the fall as part of its educational outreach under an EM grant to the Voinovich School for Leadership and Public Affairs.

   Several hundred miles away at Marshall County High School (MCHS) in western Kentucky, another group of advanced-placement environmental science students is summarizing the ASER for the Paducah Site. Like the Waverly, Ohio project, that report describes ongoing environmental operations and analytical cleanup-related data used in ongoing environmental monitoring and remediation programs. The project is part of an educational outreach program facilitated by an EM grant to the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research.

   To help kick off the project, the students recently participated in presentations about the site’s mission, history, role in the nuclear industry, and its economic impact. The presentations were followed by a site tour and a visit to the West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area adjacent to the Paducah site.  

   “The size of the plant amazed me,” MCHS senior Justice Beal said.  “It really shows how much America can accomplish.”

   Teacher Tina Marshall said her students learned a great deal about the history of the plant and its economic influence in western Kentucky while receiving valuable experience and training in environmental science. “The student ASER program also allows the students to sharpen their writing, group collaboration and critical thinking skills,” she added.

   For Trego, the Ohio student, he had an appreciation for seeing the plant before its decontamination and decommissioning in the coming years. “I’ve always enjoyed history and I liked learning about the history of the plant,” he said.  “It was a good opportunity for a lot of students to get to see something that many people will never get to see.”

   Added Trego’s teacher Evans: “I appreciated the speakers and how they talked about how their careers were made. I think it allowed them to see what’s possible.”

   According to EM Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Acting Manager Robert Edwards, over several years the ASER summary projects have motivated many area students to want to pursue scientific and technical careers while honing skills to help them get there.  

   “The students are becoming knowledgeable about the important environmental remediation work that’s ongoing at these plants as well as the cultural and economic aspects,” Edwards said. “Some of these young people will probably help determine the future of these historic sites for our local communities.”