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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Tru-ly Clean - What Does It Mean?

Conference ·
OSTI ID:21326110
 [1]
  1. Fluor Hanford, Inc, Richland, WA (United States)
The evolution and genesis of the definition of transuranic waste (known as TRU) and its application to the cleanup criteria applied to soils contaminated with transuranics, specifically plutonium, has been a matter of discussion at contaminated sites in the United States and elsewhere. Cleanup decisions and the processes that led up to those decisions have varied at several plutonium contaminated sites within the United States and without the pacific region. The sites with radionuclide soil action levels include Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, Republic of the Marshall Islands; Johnston Atoll, Hawaii; the Hanford Site in Washington State; the Nevada Test Site; the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site in Colorado; the Chariot Site in north Alaska; and the Maralinga Site in Australia. The soil-action level developed for Rocky Flats by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for plutonium is one of the higher soil-action levels approved by regulatory agencies that is considered protective for future use of land at a cleanup site. The Republic of the Marshall Islands has adopted a relatively conservative cleanup standard to accommodate the subsistence lifestyle of the islanders, while the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site has been transferred to the U.S. Department of the Interior to be used as a fish and wildlife refuge, a land use that resulted in a less conservative plutonium soil cleanup level. (authors)
Research Organization:
WM Symposia, 1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9 - 332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
OSTI ID:
21326110
Report Number(s):
INIS-US--10-WM-08286
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English