Experiences at decommissioned and operating nuclear power plants show that leaks and spills from plant systems, structures, and components and work practices can lead to contamination on on-site soils and groundwater. While the levels of radioactivity resulting from such contamination events do not pose health and safety threats to the public, they have raised stakeholder concerns and, in some cases, have required remediation during decommissioning to meet site-release criteria. The EPRI Nuclear Power Plant Groundwater Protection Program provides technical support and guidance to the industry for prevention of leaks and spills, early detection of leaks and spills, monitoring of groundwater contamination, prevention of off-site migration of groundwater contamination, and remediation of groundwater and soil contamination. The EPRI Groundwater Protection Program is composed of two main objectives: 1) provide technical guidance and 2) develop advanced technologies.
The cornerstones of the EPRI Groundwater Protection Program are the EPRI Groundwater Protection Guidelines for Nuclear Power Plants and the EPRI Groundwater and Soil Remediation Guidelines. These Guidelines documents provide users with guidance for implementing groundwater protection and groundwater and soil remediation programs that are risk-informed and appropriate to the specifics of their nuclear power plant site. The Groundwater Protection Guidelines provides information about evaluating potential risks for groundwater contamination (e.g. systems, structures, and components, and work practices), installing and managing monitoring wells, and sampling and data management to effectively prevent and anticipate potential contamination and prevent off-site migration of any contamination. The Soil and Groundwater Remediation Guidelines provides a process by which the user can evaluate and characterize a leak or spill determine whether remediation is necessary to meet site-release criteria (at the time of decommissioning, license termination, and site-release) or other site-specific criteria, and which remediation technologies may be most technologically effective and cost effective.