The Stewardship Committee of the EUWG defined stewardship of residual contamination following remediation on the Oak Ridge Reservation as:

"Acceptance of the responsibility and the implementation of activities necessary to maintain long-term protection of human health and of the environment from hazards posed by residual radioactive and chemically hazardous materials."

Stewardship of materials not associated with environmental remediation, such as the storage of highly enriched uranium and the uranium hexaflouride cylinders, was not considered.

If EUWG recommendations are followed, some radioactive and chemically toxic contamination present on the Oak Ridge Reservation will be managed in place or moved to a new disposal facility on the Reservation. In either case, a long-term stewardship program will be needed. These materials are persistent or long-lived and will need to be controlled in perpetuity to ensure protection of human health and the environment. Regardless of the remediation approach, contaminated material will remain on the Oak Ridge Reservation.

Returning contaminated areas to pristine conditions is often risky for excavation and transportation workers; is impractical for cost, technical, and logistical reasons; and does not always result in risk reduction. In addition, citizens and governments of the affected areas often oppose the transport and off-site disposal of contaminated materials, and the EUWG believes that the citizens of Oak Ridge must be fair in approaching an equitable distribution for waste disposal.

Because some level of contamination will remain on the Oak Ridge Reservation, a stewardship program is needed to protect the public and the environment from future risks associated with the residual contamination. Developing an effective stewardship program is essential to the application of EUWG recommendations. The EUWG cannot endorse any remediation program that leaves residual contamination above health-based levels without the assurance that all necessary and appropriate actions for stewardship are in place.

During deliberations regarding future uses of contaminated areas on the Oak Ridge Reservation, the EUWG realized the need for a formal stewardship program. Recognizing the complexity of such a task, the EUWG formed a committee to develop detailed stewardship recommendations. The EUWG Stewardship Committee was joined by a group from the Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory to establish an even broader-based group of stakeholders to evaluate stewardship. The stewardship committee established five goals:

• Identify essential elements of effective stewardship;
• Develop long-term stewardship requirements for the Oak Ridge Reservation;
• Identify options and promote the acquisition of adequate long-term funding for stewardship on the Oak Ridge Reservation;
• Promote public understanding of stewardship; and
• Promote interaction concerning stewardship among individuals and appropriate local, state, and federal organizations.

The stewardship committee’s results and recommendations are presented in a separate report. The Stakeholder Report on Stewardship documents the efforts of the stewardship committee, presents the attributes and basic elements of a long-term stewardship program, describes the current and proposed statutory provisions for stewardship and institutional controls, and presents recommendations for an Oak Ridge Reservation stewardship program, including categories of stewards, physical controls, institutional controls, information systems, research, and funding options.

The Stewardship Report calls for DOE:

• to begin immediately to include an increasingly complete stewardship section in each CERCLA decision document;
• to develop a Stewardship Implementation Plan by the end of 1999 so that stewardship requirements are included as an integral part of all CERCLA decision documents; and
• to form a volunteer citizen Stewardship Transition Team in the fall of 1998 to assist in the implementation and development of stakeholder stewardship recommendations and to monitor progress of developing stewardship programs; this transition team is to be followed by a more formal Citizens Oversight Board for Stewardship.

The EUWG’s work on long-term stewardship has important ramifications for Oak Ridge and other DOE installations. Immediate attention to stewardship will help DOE and its regulators to craft remedial actions that address stakeholder concerns and offer long-term protection of human health and the environment where there is residual contamination. Development of a stewardship program by DOE would forestall program disruptions that could occur if remediated facilities were transferred to a new stewardship agency.

The Stakeholder Report on Stewardship contains many specific recommendations, and it should be consulted for a full understanding of stewardship issues.