The Dept. of Energy and the state of Idaho have reached an agreement for a cleanup plan for buried waste at the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls. The July 1 announcement ends six years of litigation between Idaho and the federal government and is designed to protect the Snake River Aquifer from plutonium-contaminated waste that was buried at the lab in the 1950s. State officials estimate the cost to clean up the site by 2018 could range from $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion. The cleanup plan focuses on a 5.7- to 7.4-acre area where the highest concentrations of waste have been identified. It will require the retrieval of approximately 6,320 cu meters of waste contaminated with pluto-nium, uranium and volatile organic compounds, as well as the packaging of approximately 7,485 cu m of waste.
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