Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management filled 52 canisters with nearly 215,000 pounds of glass-waste mixture at the Savannah River Site and removed 11,872 pounds of volatile organic compounds from groundwater at the site. November 25, 2025
Office of Environmental Management
November 25, 2025
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AIKEN, S.C. — Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management filled 52 canisters with nearly 215,000 pounds of glass-waste mixture at the Savannah River Site (SRS) and removed 11,872 pounds of volatile organic compounds from groundwater at the site.
Those are among the highlights of the Annual Site Environmental Report (ASER), published to provide the public and stakeholders with comprehensive information on the site’s environmental conditions for the previous calendar year.
The ASER is key to DOE’s commitment to openness and public understanding of operations. Each year SRS and other DOE sites are responsible for creating the report in compliance with DOE reporting requirements.
In 2024, SRS continued to operate safely and accomplish its missions, all while upholding a strong record of environmental excellence. As in past years, the site adhered to federal and state regulations aimed at protecting both the public and SRS employees.
“A chief purpose of the ASER is to document the radiological and nonradiological condition of the site environment, the effluents and emissions released from DOE operations and noteworthy trends regarding these releases and environmental conditions,” said Eric Doman, Environmental Monitoring Program manager with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the site’s management and operations contractor. “The report also summarizes SRS environmental data; compliance with relevant DOE, federal and state regulations; and updates on its remediation and surveillance monitoring programs.”
The 2024 Savannah River Site (SRS) Annual Site Environmental Report provides the public with information about the site’s extensive environmental monitoring and compliance program, including verified data from samples taken at SRS and in the surrounding communities.
SRS has been tracking environmental conditions since the site was established in the early 1950s and has released an ASER annually since 1959. Over the last 75 years, the comprehensive SRS Environmental Monitoring Program has shown the following:
- The annual radiological dose from SRS operations is less than one millirem. For context, the annual average dose per person in the U.S. from all natural and human-made sources is about 620 millirems.
- SRS protects, monitors, remediates and conserves groundwater at SRS.
- The site employs innovative, cost-effective technologies to reduce the site’s environmental footprint.
The SRNS Environmental Compliance and Area Completion Projects team collects more than 10,000 monitoring and surveillance samples annually from air, water, soil, sediment, food products, freshwater fish, seafood, wildlife, plants and trees. These samples, collected onsite and from neighboring cities, towns and counties in Georgia and South Carolina, are analyzed by the Environmental Bioassay Laboratory at SRS, or at an offsite accredited laboratory. Reports are then compiled and reported by the Environmental Monitoring group.
The annual report is a yearlong focus for the Environmental Monitoring team and serves as DOE’s primary document to educate the public on environmental programs, missions, accomplishments and community outreach efforts at the site. The SRS ASER has been referenced for many years as a model across the DOE complex.
Click here to view the 2024 ASER.
-Contributor: Fallan Flatow
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