Site Description
The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) is the only active uranium enrichment facility in the United States. Located in the western part of McCracken County, KY, the facility is approximately 10 miles west of Paducah and 3.5 miles south of the Ohio River (Figure 1). The plant is located on a US DOE reservation that encompasses approximately 3,500 acres, including property leased to the state of the Kentucky to augment the West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area (WKWMA). The WKWMA provides an effective buffer around the 748 acres that comprise the plant’s main industrial operations (DOE, 2006).
US DOE property is bordered to the north by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Shawnee Steam Plant which, along with another facility in Missouri, provides electricity to the PGDP. US DOE property is bordered to the south and west by the WKWMA. Several private properties directly border US DOE property to east.
Following the initial discovery in 1988 of Technetium-99 contamination in nearby drinking water wells, US DOE initiated a Water Policy, which provides potable water at DOE expense to properties overlying or potentially overlying a contaminated groundwater plume. This plume has affected both residential and agricultural properties to the east and west of the PGDP (Figure 2).
PGDP, a uranium enrichment facility, is owned by US DOE, which began leasing the plant production facility to the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) on July 1, 1993. Paducah Remediation Services currently manages Environmental Restoration and Waste Management (ERWM) activities for US DOE.
Figure 1
Figure 2