The APPA Report — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has informed state regulators it intends to end federally mandated five-year reviews of cleanup activities at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant once certain internal milestones are reached, shifting oversight responsibilities to a decades-old state agreement.

In a May 5 response letter to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA), DOE officials addressed comments from the state agency regarding the Five-Year Review Work Plan for the Process Buildings Project at the southern Ohio nuclear site. The plan is part of the broader decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of uranium processing facilities at the former Cold War-era enrichment plant near Piketon.

According to the letter, once contaminated buildings and associated structures are fully removed, the DOE will no longer conduct five-year reviews under its current Record of Decision (ROD) for the Process Buildings and Complex Facilities Project. Instead, environmental protections for the remaining areas—including potentially contaminated soil, groundwater, and other media—will be maintained under the 1989 Ohio Consent Decree and a Decision Document governing deferred Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) units at the site.

Under that framework, DOE will rely on land use controls, including a site-wide environmental covenant and annual activity-use limitation reports to Ohio EPA, rather than continued federal reviews or active site testing.

Critically, DOE also clarified that the D&D process covered by the ROD does not include investigation or cleanup of environmental media—such as soil, surface water, or groundwater. Those responsibilities fall under the scope of the Consent Decree, a legally binding agreement between DOE and the state that predates many of the modern environmental concerns raised in recent years.

The shift has raised red flags for environmental advocates and local watchdogs who question whether transitioning oversight to an older legal framework reduces accountability and transparency. Critics point out that the Consent Decree lacks the structured five-year review process and public-facing documentation found in DOE’s more recent remediation protocols.

The Portsmouth plant, which enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and power reactors until 2001, remains one of the most contaminated sites in the DOE complex. The ongoing cleanup, which includes demolition of massive processing buildings and management of legacy waste, has drawn scrutiny from residents and environmental groups concerned about radioactive contamination and public health risks in the region.

The May 5 letter, signed by DOE Portsmouth Site Lead Jeremy Davis, reinforces that five-year reviews will continue only until all current remedial action objectives outlined in the Process Buildings ROD are met—at which point oversight will defer entirely to the Consent Decree and associated land use controls.

No new soil or groundwater testing is included under this five-year plan. Davis noted that environmental remediation work continues separately under the Consent Decree but did not elaborate on future plans for expanded monitoring or testing in the surrounding area.

For residents and regulators in southern Ohio, the letter represents a formal statement of DOE’s intent to scale back federal oversight once building demolition is complete—a move that could have long-term implications for environmental protection in one of Ohio’s most polluted communities.