PRESS RELEASE—for immediate release
80 years after first nuclear bomb Federal Agencies Sued for Failing to Protect Against Radioactive Toxic Hazards
Contacts: Diane D’Arrigo, NIRS, 202-841-8588 dianed@nirs.org
Axel Ringe, 865-387-7398 onyxfarm@bellsouth.net
Terry Lodge, esq. tjlodge50@yahoo.com
Wallace Taylor, esq. wtaylor784@aol.com
July 17, 2025–Six environmental, public interest and community groups filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia this week. The plaintiffs seek to reverse decisions by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approving dangerous radioactive and chemical contamination of waterways in violation of the Clean Water Act, SUPERFUND (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act or CERCLA) and EPA’s own regulations implementing these laws.
The mistaken approval of a new toxic, hazardous and radioactive waste landfill sets a dangerous precedent for sites across the country being cleaned up, harms the environment and human health, and threatens Tennessee recreational waters.
The plaintiffs are the Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, Sowing Justice, Community Defense of East Tennessee, Foundation for Global Sustainability, Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association, and Nuclear Information and Resource Service all represented by Terry Lodge, Esq. and Wallace Taylor, Esq.
The groups are seeking to compel the agencies to comply with federal law as they carry out a SUPERFUND cleanup at DOE’s Oak Ridge nuclear weapons Reservation (ORR) near Knoxville, Tennessee. Long-lasting radioactive and hazardous wastes, including mercury and PCBs, from the demolition of many structures on the ORR would be buried in a new landfill, the Environmental Management Disposal Facility (EMDF). If built as planned, EMDF will release high, unsafe, illegal levels of harmful chemicals into the water that flows from the site, becomes more concentrated in fish and animals, and exposes the public to unacceptable health risks.
The lawsuit also seeks to repair the damage done to recreational waters in and around the ORR caused by unpermitted discharges of the same kinds of wastes for the past twenty years.
After EPA and DOE repeatedly ignored expert and public comments on these and other important issues, the 6 plaintiff organizations whose members and followers would be impacted by the contamination, decided their only remaining option was to challenge the completely inadequate cleanup in court.
Quotes from plaintiff organizations
“It is unacceptable for the US DOE to continue environmental abuse and for the US EPA to allow it in the Oak Ridge area or any other region,” said Don Safer, a boater on the board of the Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association (TSRA).
Because the potential releases from the landfill could be so high, Marquita Bradshaw of Sowing Justice raised the concern that “When you harm the earth, you harm the people. The dangerous increases in radiation and toxic chemicals could give cancer to those downstream. This takes subsistence fishing off the table for those reliant on it and threatens even recreational fishing.”
Nancy Manning, Executive Director of Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning (TCWP) stated that “TCWP supports protecting the Oak Ridge Reservation, the largest tract of relatively unfragmented forest habitat in the Tennessee Valley and home to 1,500 species of plants and animals, including many threatened or endangered species. We call on EPA and DOE to rectify the Record of Decision concerning the Environmental Management Disposal Facility by bringing the landfills into compliance with federal laws and regulations to preserve the health and viability of this critical ecosystem.”
Imani Mfalme-Shula, Executive Director, Center for East Tennessee Defense (CDET). “We joined this lawsuit because East Tennessee families especially Black, rural, and working-class communities have carried the toxic legacy of Oak Ridge for far too long. We know that environmental pollution doesn’t just poison land and water it poisons opportunity. Exposure to hazardous waste like mercury and PCBs can impact children’s development and behavior, increasing school disciplinary actions and pushing them toward the school-to-prison pipeline. This is a fight for clean water, safe schools, and a future where our children can thrive not be punished for the consequences of government negligence. DOE and EPA must be held accountable.”
Wolf Naegeli, President of the Foundation for Global Sustainability said, “It is well documented that, as planned, this landfill would endanger the public health and safety for enumerable generations. Political appointees, project managers and contractors, pursuing short-term priorities, ignored the regulations and the insights of experts with decades of experience and are now violating federal laws.”
Diane D’Arrigo with Nuclear Information and Resource Service said, “Our goal here is locally, to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy from additional massive nuclear and toxic pollution of Tennessee waterways and, nationally, to prevent a monumental bad precedent allowing such violations at other contaminated sites.”
Background Information
The ORR is a 34,000-acre nuclear weapons complex site bounded on the north and east by the City of Oak Ridge and on the south and west by the Clinch River. There, facilities owned and operated by DOE were originally part of the Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bombs. During the Cold War, ORR facilities were greatly expanded. Various activities caused releases of radioactive, mercury and other hazardous substances throughout the ORR and the bioregion. These releases have and continue to contaminate surface water, sediment and ground water inside and outside of the reservation’s boundaries.
In 2023, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated the final cleanup cost to be more than $30 billion, with a projected completion date of 2047.
After former EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan approved DOE’s Environmental Management Disposal Facility (EMDF) for burial of hazardous, toxic and radioactive waste back in 2022, various regulators and public interest groups repeatedly tried to get DOE and EPA to fix the problems with that decision.
A letter from 41 community groups (Groups-Letter-to-EPA-re-Oak-Ridge-Landfills-f.pdf) requested the Administrator to “end the culture of non-compliance associated with disposal of Superfund waste at the ORR … [and to] exercise leadership going forward to ensure that all Superfund related work performed now and in the future at the ORR follows the law and regulations.”
This was a follow-up to a longer, technical, legal letter to the EPA Administrator (Letter-to-EPA-Administrator-Regan-dated-Feb-28-2024-concerning-DOE-ORR-EMDF-ROD.pdf), from environmental professionals who called on him “to correct the EMDF Record of Decision (ROD) you signed, as EPA Administrator, so that it ensures (1) protective wastewater discharge criteria for current and future generations, (2) waste acceptance criteria (WAC) that will protect future generations, and (3) selection and implementation of a remedial action that complies with federal law and regulations.”
Other Superfund and hazardous and radioactive sites across the country could be affected by the outcome of this precedent-setting lawsuit.
More information, including an overall timeline, technical environmental concerns, and copies of the governmental documents can be found at the following websites and at the state TDEC and federal government websites which they cite:
EMDF Oak Ridge
Hazardous Waste Landfill (EMDF) | AFORR
PEER Sues EPA In Bid to Assess Legality of Oak Ridge Cleanup Decision – PEER.org