Idaho National Laboratory Cultural Resource Management Plan

eginning in the late 1960s, has resulted in mixed
success for this endeavor.
Reactor development and new construction at
INL peaked in the late 1960s, and INL contractors
began to seek external programs and customers to
reuse existing INL architectural properties. A
program known as “Work for Others” trained and
encouraged employees to market INL staff and
property capabilities to a wide variety of other
government agencies and private businesses. As a
result of this marketing effort, some INL
employees worked on external programs for
agencies such as the Department of Defense, and
several INL structures were reused. For example, a
large hangar located at TAN is now used by the
U.S. Army for its Abrams tank armor project.
In addition to active marketing efforts, a
program was developed to identify “excess” INL
architectural properties that were no longer needed
and to screen those properties for reuse by all
federal agencies. However, in addition to reuse,
there also exists a need to clean up “legacy” waste
left by past processes and, by the late 1980s,
compliance with environmental laws and
regulations became a growing concern. In the
early 1990s, many of the “Work for Others”
programs and customers were gone and DOE
transferred INL landlord responsibilities, including
the management of INL architectural properties,
from reactor development to environmental
remediation and, later, to environmental
management (Stacy 2000 and personal
communication with Ken Moor).
The mission of the Environmental
Management Program is to treat and/or remove
INL hazardous, radiological, and mixed wastes
and identify contaminated architectural properties
for DD&D. Properties identified as contaminated
include those that contained materials such as
asbestos, petroleum products, acids and bases,
radionuclides, unexploded ordnance and explosive
residues (see Figure 25), polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs), and heavy metals (Arrowrock
2003). Although this meant that virtually all
historic INL buildings and structures were slated
for DD&D, internal and external opportunities for
reusing them continue to be pursued.
Figure 25. Unexploded Naval depth charge found
at INL.
In 2002, the Secretary of Energy designated
INL as DOE’s lead laboratory for the development
of the next generation of nuclear reactors and, at
the same time, accelerated environmental cleanup.
Landlord responsibilities shifted from
environmental management to DOE’s Nuclear
Energy Program and, in 2003, a transition team
was formed to identify properties to transfer to the
Nuclear Energy Program for continued use or
reuse. This effort is ongoing and is intended to
remain flexible as the new nuclear mission and
necessary funding evolve and new customers and
uses for some properties are identified, while the
potential for reuse of other properties fades.
Stakeholder Communication
Both the NHPA (36 CFR 800.8) and NEPA,
along with various executive orders and DOE
policies, require stakeholder communication and
systematic planning as keys to their successful
implementation. Systematic planning for public
participation in INL cultural resource management
helps DOE ensure that such participation takes
place in a productive manner. It further helps
ensure that the public’s interests regarding cultural
resource preservation and interpretation is
considered as INL executes its primary missions.
The list of stakeholders and potential
stakeholders is as varied as the resources
themselves, including such diverse groups as local
historical societies, museum associations, Oregon
Trail enthusiasts, INL retirees, historical and
scientific researchers, American Indian tribes, and
the general public. These diverse stakeholders are
involved at appropriate levels and at appropriate
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