EPA plans to clean up American Nuclear site, targets 24 months to completion
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to clean up the American Nuclear site in the Claxton community.
“Well, I don’t know if we’re on camera, but in case we are, I’m not going to dance; I am so darn excited about this,” Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank said after the cleanup effort’s announcement at the Oct. 9 Anderson County Commission Intergovernmental Committee meeting.
The American Nuclear site is off of Blockhouse Valley Road.
“You’ll find we’re light on details right now, heavy on good news,” said Steve Sanders, director of remediation for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, during the meeting.
American Nuclear, he said, produced “source material for medical use” starting in the 1960.
It closed due to improper handling of the material, and the state took control of the property in the 1980s.
Sanders said TDEC worked with the EPA within the past year and got $13.5 million in federal funding. Laws and statutes require the cleanup to start within six months.
“As we sit here this evening, we should be roughly inside 24 months to having the property addressed,” he said at the Oct. 9 meeting.
He said the EPA’s contractor will likely decide the hazardous waste’s final storage place.
“It is very likely at this point that it’s going to leave the state and go to one of the radioactive landfills in the West,” he said.
He said the Anderson County government’s interest in using the land was a factor in cleaning it rather than just leaving it fenced in, as it is now.
“We have several hundred acres over there that we’d like to develop at some point,” county Commissioner Tracy Wandell said at the meeting. That might involve walking trails, he said.
The County Commission also discussed the cleanup and the future of the relevant land at its Oct. 16 meeting.
“We’re glad we’re going to get this cleaned up and be able to use the property,” Frank said.
“And it’s going to be cleaned up to a level that will be, to my understanding, no limits on use,” she said at that meeting.
County Law Director Jay Yeager said the county should be careful to make sure the site is fully clean and safe before acquiring it.
“If there’s any problem with it, I don’t think we want it,” he said.
There will be a report confirming the cleanup efforts’ success, he added.
“When that comes back clean, we’ll make the move for the title back, and I don’t think there’ll be any problems getting it back,” he said.
