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About the Painesville Site
The Painesville Site, located in Painesville, Ohio, was a former magnesium production facility, operated by the Diamond Magnesium Company under contract to the Federal Government.
From 1951 to 1953, Diamond Magnesium received approximately 1,650 tons of radioactively contaminated scrap steel from the Lake Ontario Storage Area (now the Niagara Falls Storage Site), to be used in the magnesium production process.
Project Status
The Corps signed the Record of Decision (ROD) for the Painesville Site on April 7, 2006. The selected remedy for cleanup of the Painesville Site, documented in the ROD, was Excavation and Off-Site Disposal of radiologically contaminated soil that exceeds the levels established in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Site remediation began in April 2007. A temporary hold was placed on the cleanup in March 2008 after the discovery of significantly increased quantities of soil requiring remediation.
The Corps’ original estimate of contaminated soil needing removal was based on available sampling data. As each of the individual excavation areas at the site were remediated, the amount of soil that was being removed exceeded the original quantity estimate. The Corps currently estimates that up to an additional 25,000 cubic yards of soil still need to be excavated from the site.
To date, the Corps has safely excavated approximately 9,400 cubic yards of contaminated soil from the Painesville Site. Nine of the twelve identified excavation areas have been successfully completed and backfilled.
The Corps recently received $15.2 Million in funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to resume remediation. Site remediation resumed in June 2010, and is scheduled to be complete in 2012.
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