Environmental surveillance of the US Department of Energy Oak Ridge Reservation and surrounding environs during 1986: Volume 1, summary and conclusions

Comprehensive environmental monitoring data for 1986 show a continuation of progress in bringing the three major Oak Ridge installations into full compliance with permits and regulations issued by governing agencies and with their advice and recommendations. At the same time, past practices under which hazardous and radioactive wastes were disposed of in ways that do not represent the best practice available today - and ways no longer acceptable to regulatory agencies - continue to have adverse impacts through continuing releases to the area environment. In some cases also, improvements in monitoring techniques and in the range of emissions and effluents that are sampled and analyzed lead to reevaluation of previous estimates of pollutant loadings and their potential health or environment effects. Efforts to clean up contaminated storage and disposal areas and to close disposal sites that do not meet current standards now or the focus of long-term, very large-scale remedial action efforts. Likewise, new and improved treatment and isolation systems for gaseous, liquid, and solid wastes contributes, each year, to continuing reductions in potentially harmful emissions and effluents from current operations. This measurable evidence provides a degree of confidence and assurance that the aggressive, long-term program of corrective actions andmore » waste management improvements now under way will be successful in restoring and enhancing environmental quality in the future and in reducing the potential for any deleterious impacts on human health from current or past Oak Ridge operations. 46 refs., 276 figs.« less