For more than three years, Westinghouse has been executing the transformation of the Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility (CFFF). We have aligned our company goals and values with our operations to achieve world-class quality while operating in a safe, transparent, environmentally sound, and socially responsible manner. We have self-identified our challenges and proactively initiated engagement with regulatory bodies and the surrounding communities to resolve issues through trust, honesty, and respect. We have introduced our Environmental Excellence Plan to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and used it to implement our commitments under the Consent Agreement (CA). The CA is designed to correct legacy environmental issues and ensure remediation strategies match industry standards of excellence – because integrity is at our very core.
We are using best practices to guide our decision-making and have made significant investments in programmatic changes, equipment modifications, and upgrades. We have also greatly increased the number of sampling locations and wells to assess legacy environmental issues, to ensure we continue to protect the public health and safety. We have made substantial progress in eliminating containers that store radioactive materials and have developed plans to close and clean the East Lagoon, a former part of the wastewater treatment system located on site. We have made major headway in eliminating legacy hazards, including the storage and usage of perchloroethylene (PERC). The removal of PERC rids the site of the only remaining significant source of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
The next phase in our commitment to improving operations and culture is the completion of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for license renewal. The EIS will be a comprehensive review, allowing the NRC to evaluate in detail the potential environmental impacts of continued operation beyond the current license term ends in 2027—including beneficial impacts. We understand some people may feel uncertain about the potential for contamination involving uranium and VOCs. The NRC has stated that its decision is not due to a public health or safety concern. However, we respect the concerns of our stakeholders and view this as an additional opportunity to reaffirm our environmental improvements.
Our current advances do not excuse missteps from prior decades. As part of our transformation, we are focused on leaving a positive legacy in environmental performance. Excellence in environment, health, and safety performance is rooted in our improvement plans and future state strategies. We hope to earn the trust of our communities through our extensive transparency and accountability measures. Our publicly accessible website, a resource stakeholders can access at their convenience, shares information related to our environmental efforts, including data and reports sent to DHEC and NRC.
Westinghouse is working closely with DHEC, the NRC, and the community to create a positive legacy for the future, based on our core values of safety, quality, integrity, and trust.
