top of page
logo
Sign Petition

What's Already in the Ground and Why Building Next Door Makes It Worse

  • Writer: ProtectMcCrackenCounty
    ProtectMcCrackenCounty
  • May 8
  • 8 min read

Updated: May 25

The contamination at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant isn't history. It's here right now. And GLE wants to build a uranium enrichment facility on the land right next to it.


Let's be clear about something before we begin. The 665 acres that GLE now owns — the former public wildlife land is not on the Superfund site. It is next to it. GLE's facility will be built on privately owned land that abuts the southern boundary of the federal reservation.


That distinction matters legally, as we've discussed. But it does not matter environmentally. Because the contamination at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant does not stay on the federal reservation. It never has. It moves — through the groundwater, through the creeks, through the soil — and it moves in the direction of GLE's site.


That is not speculation. It is documented in federal records going back decades.


Wide angle view of a lush green park in McCracken County

What is the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant Superfund site?


The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant operated from 1952 to 2013 — 61 years of uranium enrichment, first for nuclear weapons, then for commercial nuclear power. It sits on 3,556 acres of federal land in northwestern McCracken County, approximately 5 miles west of Paducah.


The plant was designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a Superfund site in 1988, following the discovery of trichloroethylene (TCE) and technetium-99 in domestic drinking water wells near the facility, and additional soil, sediment, and groundwater contaminated with TCE, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and uranium in and around the plant. MultiState


That was 1988. The cleanup is still underway. The projected completion date — $17 billion later — is 2065.


What is still in the ground — right now


This is not ancient history. The following contamination is active, documented, and ongoing as of the most recent federal and state environmental reports.


Technetium-99 — a radioactive element with a 200,000-year half-life


Primary contaminants are TCE and the radionuclide technetium-99 — an element with a half-life of over 200,000 years. Datacenters


Technetium-99 was discovered in drinking water wells near the plant in 1988 — which is what triggered the Superfund designation. The groundwater plumes carrying it have been the subject of pump-and-treat systems running continuously since the 1990s. They have not been eliminated. They have been contained — partially. And they move.

The two largest groundwater plumes containing technetium-99 and trichloroethylene move approximately one foot per day. Farm Progress


One foot per day. Every day. Toward the Ohio River. And toward the land where GLE plans to build.


TCE — trichloroethylene


TCE is a toxic industrial solvent — classified as a human carcinogen by the EPA. Diffusion of the high-strength contamination into less permeable zones over many decades "loaded" contaminants into these zones, forming secondary sources that continue to slowly "unload" long after the primary contamination source was removed. Datacenters


The source of the primary TCE plume — the C-400 Cleaning Building — is entering its most intensive remediation phase right now, in 2025. The most contaminated area of the entire Superfund site is being actively treated at this moment. Construction of a major new industrial facility directly adjacent to that remediation zone carries real risk of disrupting the subsurface systems that are keeping that contamination contained.


PCBs — in the creeks that flow to the Ohio River


Surface water runoff and groundwater migration have led to detectable contamination of technetium-99, PCBs, and trace amounts of transuranics in Little and Big Bayou Creeks, which are tributaries of the Ohio River. World Resources Institute


Little Bayou Creek and Big Bayou Creek flow from the Superfund site toward the Ohio River. They carry the plant's contamination legacy with them. Warning signs have been posted. Surface water use has been restricted.


GLE's 665-acre site sits adjacent to this watershed. Any additional contamination — from construction, from operations, from cooling water discharge — enters the same system.


PFAS — "forever chemicals," discovered in 2020, migration not under control


In 2020, DOE reported the discovery of PFAS contamination in the groundwater at the Fire Training Area of the Superfund site. PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are called "forever chemicals" because they do not break down in the environment. They accumulate in soil, groundwater, and the human body.


As of the most recent EPA site documentation, the migration of PFAS contamination at the Paducah site is not under control. There is no established remediation system for it. It is moving.


Contaminants of concern include trichloroethylene (TCE), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), technetium-99, uranium, thorium, and transuranic elements such as plutonium and neptunium. ScienceDirect


Plutonium and neptunium — detected in a drainage ditch adjacent to major buildings, not contained, exposed.


The critical point: contamination doesn't respect property lines


GLE's land is privately owned. It is not on the federal Superfund reservation. In the legal and regulatory world, that boundary matters enormously — it determines which agencies have jurisdiction, which rules apply, and who bears liability.

In the physical world, that boundary means nothing.


A future groundwater pathway could exist if new wells are drilled into plumes northeast and northwest of the plant by future landowners. That assessment was written decades ago. GLE is now that future landowner. Their facility will require water access. Their construction will alter the subsurface. Their operations will introduce new chemicals and new heat into a hydrological system that is already carrying contamination it has been trying to flush for 35 years. Governing


The NRC's draft Environmental Impact Statement for GLE's facility evaluates GLE's project on its own 322-acre development footprint. It does not — because it is not required to — assess how GLE's operations interact with the active contamination plumes migrating beneath and adjacent to their site.


That is precisely what the Kentucky Resources Council's petition to the NRC identified. KRC argues that in failing to use site-specific data to study potential environmental impacts, the NRC's review could be violating the National Environmental Policy Act — a legal framework designed to assess the impacts of projects, regulations, or policies. Datacenterbans


The NRC is evaluating GLE's project as if it exists in isolation. It does not. It exists on the boundary of one of the most contaminated federal sites in the United States.


Why building next door makes it worse — not better


Officials describe GLE's project as part of the cleanup solution — re-enriching the depleted uranium stored at the site accelerates the DOE's remediation mission and reduces long-term federal costs. That is GLE's framing, and it contains a kernel of truth.


But it misses three critical problems.


Problem 1: Construction disturbs what remediation is containing.


The pump-and-treat systems at the Paducah site have been running for nearly 30 years to prevent contaminated groundwater from reaching the Ohio River. They depend on a carefully managed subsurface hydrological balance. Major construction on immediately adjacent land — excavation, dewatering, foundation work, underground utility installation — can alter groundwater flow patterns, potentially disrupting the very systems that are keeping contamination contained.


No independent assessment of this construction risk has been publicly conducted or required.


Problem 2: New industrial operations add new contamination sources to a compromised system.


A uranium enrichment facility requires significant water use — for cooling, for processing, for equipment maintenance. That water, after use, must go somewhere. Even with the best available treatment systems, industrial discharge carries chemical residue. On a site where the groundwater is already carrying radioactive contamination, adding new industrial discharge — even legally permitted discharge — is not neutral. It is additive.


The NRC's draft EIS has been criticized by the Kentucky Resources Council for relying on generic rather than site-specific data in assessing these impacts. The proposed Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility would be located adjacent to the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a site with a long history of radioactive and hazardous contamination issues. That history is precisely what generic data cannot capture. Congress.gov


Problem 3: If something goes wrong, the baseline makes attribution impossible.


Here is a question nobody has answered publicly: if a new contamination event occurs on or near GLE's site in the next 20 years, how will regulators distinguish between legacy contamination from the Superfund site and new contamination from GLE's operations?


The answer is: with enormous difficulty, if at all. The contamination signatures overlap. Technetium-99 is technetium-99, whether it came from 60 years of federal enrichment or from a new private facility. PCBs are PCBs. The baseline contamination at this site makes future attribution — and therefore future liability — extraordinarily complex.


That complexity benefits GLE. It does not benefit McCracken County.


What the NRC's own draft EIS admits


The NRC's draft Environmental Impact Statement evaluates the environmental impacts of the proposed action of issuing a license that would authorize GLE to construct and operate a uranium enrichment facility on a 322-acre site located in McCracken County, Kentucky, approximately 5 miles west of Paducah. Axios


That evaluation is narrowly scoped — by design. The NRC's job is to evaluate GLE's facility. It is not required to evaluate how GLE's facility interacts with the Superfund site next door. It is not required to assess the cumulative impact of GLE's operations plus General Matter's uranium enrichment facility on the Superfund site plus the proposed data center plus the proposed SMR. It evaluates one piece of the picture.

The Kentucky Resources Council has formally challenged this approach — arguing that the NRC's reliance on generic rather than site-specific environmental data may violate NEPA. That challenge is active and pending.


But even if the NRC's process is eventually corrected to include site-specific data, it will still only look at GLE's facility in isolation. Nobody — not the NRC, not the EPA, not the DOE, not the Commonwealth of Kentucky — is required to look at all of these projects together.


That is the gap this community is asking the McCracken County Planning Commission to fill.


Five million people downstream


The Ohio River is the drinking water source for approximately five million people downstream of Paducah. The contamination at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant has been migrating toward that river for decades. The pump-and-treat systems are the primary barrier between the contaminated groundwater and the river.

Those systems cannot be taken for granted. They are mechanical. They require maintenance. They can be disrupted by adjacent construction. They will eventually require upgrading or replacement.


Adding a uranium enrichment facility, a data center, and a small modular nuclear reactor in and around the same hydrological system — without a comprehensive, site-specific, cumulative environmental assessment — is not responsible development. It is a gamble with the drinking water of five million people, made by officials who will not be the ones drinking it.


What needs to happen


The Kentucky Resources Council has already taken the first step — formally challenging the NRC's EIS for failing to use site-specific data. That challenge deserves community support.


But the NRC process, even corrected, will only address GLE's facility in isolation. The cumulative assessment — all projects, all contamination, all risks, evaluated together — will not happen unless a local body demands it.


That is why we will the McCracken County Planning Commission on May 27th to require an independent cumulative environmental and economic impact assessment — funded by the applicants, not the taxpayers — as a condition of any further approvals.


The contamination is not historical. It is active. It is here. And before any new industrial facility is permitted on the land adjacent to it, this community deserves to know — from an independent, site-specific analysis — exactly what adding more means.


Sources — verify everything:



Nothing in this post constitutes legal or environmental advice. If you have specific concerns about contamination exposure, contact the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet at (502) 564-2150 or the EPA Region 4 Superfund Division.

 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page