LM joined their U.S. Army Corps of Engineers colleagues to visit active FUSRAP sites in the Northeast.
September 21, 2023
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This summer, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers staff toured a national laboratory and six Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program sites in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. Under FUSRAP, USACE cleans up sites before transferring them to LM for long-term stewardship.
On the trip, the interagency FUSRAP team met with regulators, stakeholders, and local officials to share information and plan for future site transfers. LM personnel included Office of Site Operations Director Jay Glascock, Beneficial Reuse Asset Manager Diana Kamenel Trettin, Records and Information Management Specialist Giancarlo Deguia, and FUSRAP Program Manager Darina Castillo.
“This trip is a key component for LM and USACE to see not only progress being made at these sites but also plan for future site transfers,” Castillo said. “We are seeing success stories across the FUSRAP program, and our partnership and work with stakeholders and community leaders is vital to that success.”
The four-day tour began Monday, July 17, on Long Island, New York, with a visit to Brookhaven National Laboratory. While at the lab, the FUSRAP team learned about the Groundwater Protection Group’s program that successfully manages 20 groundwater treatment systems. The work at Brookhaven is a good model for future FUSRAP sites in the program.
The FUSRAP team began the next day in Hicksville, New York, where they visited the former Sylvania Corning Plant site. During the early Cold War, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) contracted with Sylvania Corning to research uranium metallurgy materials and make uranium nuclear elements. From Hicksville, the team traveled to the Staten Island Warehouse site, which stored enriched uranium ore from Africa in the early 1940s before the Manhattan Engineer District purchased it.
Leaving New York, the FUSRAP team’s first stop in New Jersey was the FUSRAP Maywood Chemical Superfund Site, where Maywood Chemical Works processed rare-earth elements and thorium from 1900 to 1969. While it was not involved with Manhattan Project or AEC work, DOE added it to FUSRAP after Congress assigned the site to the department in 1983.
On Wednesday, the tour group traveled to two more New Jersey FUSRAP sites: the Middlesex South, New Jersey, Site, formerly known as the Middlesex Sampling Plant, and the DuPont Chambers Works site. Both sites were involved in the Manhattan Project. Uranium ore was stored and assayed at the Middlesex Sampling Plant, and uranium compounds and metal were processed at the DuPont Chambers Works site in Deepwater, New Jersey.
While in Middlesex, the FUSRAP team met with Borough of Middlesex representatives to discuss site reuse opportunities. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently chose the Middlesex South site to receive the sixth annual National Federal Facility Excellence in Site Reuse Award in the National Priorities List category. DOE began cleanup at the Middlesex South site in 1980 under FUSRAP. In 1997, USACE took over site cleanup, remediating soils to an unrestricted-use level. Once USACE completes the groundwater cleanup, LM will take over long-term stewardship of the site, which includes routine inspections, monitoring, maintenance, records-related activities, and stakeholder support.
The tour wrapped up Thursday morning with a visit to W.R. Grace at the Curtis Bay, Maryland, Site in Baltimore. During the mid-1950s, AEC contracted with W.R. Grace to process monazite sand for thorium content at the company’s Curtis Bay facility.
The tour provided LM and USACE the opportunity to share information and plan for eventual site transfers. Close collaboration between the two agencies is essential to ensure efficient and effective site transitions to long-term stewardship. USACE plans to transfer all the toured sites to LM for long-term stewardship within the next 11 years:
- Staten Island Warehouse site in 2026.
- Maywood site in 2029.
- Middlesex South site in 2030.
- DuPont Chambers Works and W.R. Grace site in 2031.
- Sylvania Corning Plant site in 2034.
To learn more about North Atlantic Division sites and the FUSRAP program, visit /lm/fusrap-program-further-resources.