Feds To Pay Penalty For Missing Superfund Deadlines Ineel Cleanup More Than A Year Behind Schedule

Missed deadlines on two Superfund cleanup projects at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory will cost the Energy Department nearly $1 million.

Gov. Phil Batt announced on Thursday that the agreement on problems with cleanup at Pit 9 and Test Area North deposits all but $100,000 of the payment into a special trust for water quality improvement work on the Snake River and its tributaries. The remaining $100,000 goes to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund account.

“We are working in a spirit of cooperation, but with a firm and steady resolve to ensure the cleanup of this important federal facility,” Batt said. “A sound cleanup record is important to secure new projects for the site.”

Batt has also been juggling state resources to comply with a federal judge’s order that it assure the quality of water in 962 stream segments meet specific standards in five years.

The payment was worked out under the dispute resolution terms of the 1991 Superfund agreement for cleaning up the two sites. Missed deadlines carry a penalty of $5,000 for the first week and up to $10,000 a week after that.

The Energy Department must develop a new plan for groundwater cleanup at Test Area North before July and for the buried plutonium contaminated waste at Pit 9 before October.

“This agreement provides the impetus needed for cleanup to begin,” EPA Regional Administrator Chuck Clarke said.

The government has already spent over $80 million on the Pit 9 project without turning shovel of dirt. It is more than a year behind schedule. Lockheed Martin Advanced Environmental Systems found the first-of-its-kind project more complex than expected despite a nine-month test phase to win the contract. Digging up buried plutonium-contaminated waste has never been tried before.

The government has been promising Idaho it would clean up the buried waste since 1970 when it stopped dumping contaminated material at the site that sits atop the Snake River Plain Aquifer.