Nuclear Waste: Future Land Use Planning at Selected DOE Cleanup Sites

The Department of Energy cleans up nuclear waste at contaminated sites. To make cleanup decisions, DOE—together with state and federal regulators—considers health risks to people who may use the land in the future for residential, industrial, or conservation purposes.

We looked at how DOE considers future land use when making cleanup decisions.

Future residential land has stricter cleanup standards and usually costs more

DOE has transferred or leased cleaned-up land at 5 sites for industrial use

Transferring land to communities or private entities can have benefits, such as economic growth; and drawbacks, including potential recontamination

Cranes and construction equipment demolishing a building

The Department of Energy (DOE) created initial future land use plans in coordination with local communities as early as 1992 at six cleanup sites GAO selected for review. These plans inform but do not bind assumptions about future land use that DOE and regulators make when selecting a cleanup remedy at a site. The remedy selected during the cleanup process has lasting consequences for how a parcel of land can be used, even after DOE transfers or leases it to another federal agency, a state or local government, or a private party. For example, any future use that would increase exposure to residual contamination above the contemplated level could undermine the protectiveness of the remedy. Accordingly, assumptions about future land use provide a framework for the range of uses that are safely available for a given parcel after cleanup.

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) General Process for Identifying Future Land Use and Subsequent Cleanup and Transfer Decisions at Selected Cleanup Sites