This section presents each of the End Use Working Group recommendations. It briefly summarizes the Group’s discussion of issues in reaching these recommendations, and identifies minority opinions where applicable. More detailed meeting summaries and videotapes of each meeting are also available.

Overall, the EUWG also developed four types of recommendations:

• Community Guidelines for contaminated land and water on the Oak Ridge Reservation;
• Recommendations for end uses of each of the five watersheds on the Oak Ridge Reservation as well as for several sites not currently included in the watersheds;
• Recommendations for siting an on-site disposal facility on the Oak Ridge Reservation; and
• Recommendations on long-term stewardship of contaminated land which are summarized in this section and presented in full in a separate Stakeholder Report on Stewardship.

It is important to reiterate that the purpose of EUWG recommendations is to identify stakeholder preferences for the future use of currently contaminated areas on the Reservation following remediation. These recommendations were developed for each of the five watersheds to guide the cleanup decision-making process, but they are in no way meant to identify specific remediation levels or technology, or to contradict existing cleanup laws or regulations.

As the EUWG progressed, it improved its decision processes and the language of its recommendations. The EUWG wished to preserve the original signed versions of its earlier recommendations, while recognizing that the precision of language and completeness of recommendations improved over time. One improvement was the use of a final paragraph in each recommendation that clarifies its implementation:

Implementation of these recommendations by the DOE must be consistent with the End Use Working Group Community Guidelines and its recommendations for stewardship. If DOE cannot meet these recommendations, exceptions must be discussed in a public forum as part of the decision-making process.

As the preciseness of terms used by the Group was improved and end use categories were refined, changes were made in the end use criteria. Table 3.1 in Section 3 presents the final end use categories and their descriptions. Where the term "restricted" is used, it means a restricted waste disposal area as described in Table 3.1. Also, residential uses would only be allowed in lands remediated to unrestricted use as reflected in Table 3.1.