The Fernald Story

Описание: Title: The Fernald Story

Date: September 28, 2016

Presenter: Sue Smiley, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Legacy Management (LM), Site Manager for the Fernald Preserve and Mound

Description: This talk covers the Fernald Feed Material Production Center in Harrison, Ohio from its creation and operation through the Fernald Closure Project to today’s Fernald Preserve. Learn about the important work performed by the Fernald employees to protect America at this massive industrial complex that seemed to arise overnight out of the cornfields. During production, the plant employed over 3,000 people and decades later the resulting environmental cleanup operation was one of the largest undertaken in the history of the United States. See how the site and the community have come full circle with the restoration of extensive wetland, prairie, and forest habitats. Community asset features
including walking trails, wildlife viewing, visitor center with history exhibits, community meeting spaces, and public programs were developed and continue to today. The mission changed from production starting in the early 1950s to broad scale environmental remediation in the 1990s, to completion of cleanup in October 2006. Ongoing activities managed by LM at the site today include maintenance of the groundwater remedy and onsite disposal facility, ecological restoration, routine environmental monitoring, public access and community engagement. Learn about yesterday’s legacy and the stories engendered through the decades of dramatic changes on the landscape that is now the Fernald Preserve.

Speaker Biography: Sue Smiley was the U.S. DOE, Office of Legacy Management (LM), Site Manager for the Fernald Preserve. She began her career with DOE in 1990, as the Environmental Compliance Manager in the Dayton Area Office for the Mound Laboratory; later transferring to the Fernald Field Office. When the Defense Program mission ended for the Ohio sites, Sue returned to Mound as senior regulatory compliance specialist at the new Ohio Field Office which served the Mound, Fernald, Ashtabula and Columbus sites in Ohio and the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York. During this time, Sue also served as Site Transition Manager and later the Soil and Groundwater Remediation Project Manager at Mound. In 2005, Sue transferred to the new EM Consolidated Business Center in Cincinnati where she continued to provide site transition support to the four Ohio sites, the Rocky Flats site in Colorado, and to continuing mission sites including several DOE national laboratories. Sue holds a Master of Environmental Science (M.En.) and a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Zoology, both from Miami University (Ohio).