Same Dirt, New Platter: What DOE's "New" Parcel A Report Actually Says

The soil on Parcel A did not get any cleaner. Hold onto that one fact as you read the story in the Paducah Sun and hear Judge Clymer wave around a "new" Department of Energy report as proof there is "essentially no risk."

Because here is what actually happened. DOE did not go back out and dig fresh samples. They did not run a single new test on the ground. They took the exact same soil data from their earlier report and ran the same numbers again. Same dirt. Same readings. The uranium, the arsenic, the chromium, right down to the decimal.

What changed is the wrapper.

A new label on the same package

The first report measured the soil against what a worker could safely be around, because the land is leased for industrial use. People asked the obvious question: what about families? What about a yard, a garden, kids playing in the dirt? So DOE ran the same old numbers against a residential yardstick and printed a fresh cover page.

And when you measure that soil the way you'd measure the ground where people actually live, it does not pass. It fails Kentucky's safety standard. In the deeper soil, it goes past even the looser federal limit.

That is not a clean bill of health. That is the same spoiled meat, served up on a new platter.

How the "safe" story holds together

DOE still lands on the word "safe," and it is worth understanding how. The reassurance leans on four moves:

• They set aside some of the worst contaminants by calling them "natural background." Labeling something typical of Kentucky soil is not the same as saying it is safe to live on.
  

• They lean on draft numbers that are not final.
  

• They pick the risk model that produces the lower result and wave off the one that looks worse.
  

• They leave out the radiation coming off the cylinder yards next door. DOE's own report says that radiation could push even a full-time worker past the federal cancer-risk limit. A family living there would get far more exposure and none of the protection a worker gets.
  

Take any one of those props away, and the "safe" conclusion is undone.

There is one more thing worth knowing. DOE's own analysis had a math error that made the radiation risk look lower than it really is. It was caught and corrected, and the corrected number is higher. Their own report understated the risk. That is not a reason to trust it. It is a reason to read it closely.

Why this matters

A press release is not a clean-up. A new cover page is not new science. When a judge tells the public "essentially no risk," the least we should expect is that the document behind those words actually says something new. This one doesn't.

We are not asking anyone to take our word for it either. We have put together a packet that walks through DOE's own reports, with the page numbers, so you can see it for yourself.

What we're asking for

Two things, and they are reasonable. First, an independent cumulative review of Parcel A, not DOE grading its own homework. Second, sign-off from Kentucky's own Radiation Health Branch, the state's radiation-safety authority, before anyone treats this ground as safe for homes or farmland. DOE's own report measures the soil against an "unrestricted use" limit, yet the land is only being leased for industrial use. If it were truly cleared for people to live on, they wouldn't need to keep leasing it as an industrial site.

Read the packet. Ask the hard questions. And do not let a new platter convince you the meat is fresh.

Sources:

DOE source documents

1. Additional Human Health Risk Screening of Leasing Parcel A Surface Soil and Subsurface Soil (Rev. 1) — the "new" report Clymer is quoting. This supports: same soil data re-run against a residential yardstick; fails Kentucky's standard and tops the federal limit in the subsurface (p. 5, Tables 7 and 2); the "background" exclusion, draft numbers, and model choice (pp. 6-7); and the gamma-shielding math error (p. 3).
   

2. Leasing Data Package for Leasing Parcel A, DOE/LX/07-2522&D2, June 2025 — the original report. This backs: the industrial-worker vs. resident framing (p. 66); the cylinder-yard radiation and DOE's own statement that a worker "may exceed 3 x 10-4 lifetime cancer risk" (p. 81, Table 19); and the max uranium-238 vs. the unrestricted-use limit (pp. 69-70).
   

Media (what this post is responding to)

3. The Paducah Sun article on the Parcel A soil.
   

4. The WPSD broadcast where Clymer says the analysis proves "essentially no risk" and admits he "couldn't find" the evidence earlier.

   
   

PMC's own backup

5. Troy Astin's Parcel A packet
   

6. PMC's cross-check with page numbers (the "read it for yourself" document).
   

7. Letter from Brian Begley, EPA (EPA Region 4 confirmed in writing that it "did not anticipate" the soil being moved off DOE property to a residential property and DOE has since written a soil-removal ban into the newer Parcel B and Parcel C leases)
   

8. Letter from KY Radiation Health Branch ("RHB has concerns about soil from this site being used in any residential or agricultural capacity without additional sampling efforts.")

Want to help? Sign the petition at ProtectMcCrackenCounty.com, share this with a neighbor, and come to our next meeting.