Editing Radioactive waste (section)

=== Legacy waste ===
Due to historic activities typically related to the radium industry, uranium mining, and military programs, numerous sites contain or are contaminated with radioactivity. In the United States alone, the [[United States Department of Energy|Department of Energy]] (DOE) states there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water."<ref name="usemdoefyp">[http://www.em.doe.gov/ U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Management] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070319214054/http://www.em.doe.gov/ |date=2007-03-19 }} – "[http://www.em.doe.gov/PDFs/170016EM_FYP_Final_3-6-06.pdf Department of Energy Five Year Plan FY 2007-FY 2011 Volume II] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070705081614/http://www.em.doe.gov/PDFs/170016EM_FYP_Final_3-6-06.pdf |date=2007-07-05 }}." Retrieved 8 April 2007.</ref> Despite copious quantities of waste, in 2007, the DOE stated a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025.<ref name="usemdoefyp" /> The [[Fernald, Ohio|Fernald]], [[Ohio]] site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards."<ref name="usemdoefyp" /> The United States has at least 108 sites designated as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres.<ref name="usemdoefyp" /><ref>American Scientist, January/February 2007.</ref> The DOE wishes to clean or mitigate many or all by 2025, using the recently developed method of [[geomelting]],{{citation needed|date=November 2013}} however the task can be difficult and it acknowledges that some may never be completely remediated. In just one of these 108 larger designations, [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]] (ORNL), there were for example at least "167 known contaminant release sites" in one of the three subdivisions of the {{convert|37000|acre|km2|0|adj=on}} site.<ref name="usemdoefyp" /> Some of the U.S. sites were smaller in nature, however, cleanup issues were simpler to address, and the DOE has successfully completed cleanup, or at least closure, of several sites.<ref name="usemdoefyp" />