Jun 27 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Joe Walker The Paducah Sun, Ky.

A public meeting Thursday will start a four-month process helping the Department of Energy decide whether to offer to buy contaminated private land near the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

The 90-minute meeting starting at 6:30 p.m. will be held in the West Kentucky Wildlife Management Area clubhouse at 10535 Ogden Landing Road, north of the plant and 2.6 miles west of Grahamville.

DOE officials have hired the University of Kentucky-based Kentucky Research Consortium for Energy and Environment to conduct a study on the issue, mandated by Congress last fall. A draft report is due Sept. 15 and a final report.

The study sprang from a plant citizens' advisory board recommendation in March 2004. Consortium director Lindell Ormsbee briefed the advisory board June 15, saying his group will evaluate a range of land-cleanup alternatives in terms of cost and protecting public health and the environment. The information will be used by DOE in meeting the federal legislation, which requires studying whether a buyout "is in the best interest of taxpayers."

Among other things, the consortium will determine the cost-effectivness of buyouts or options, and where contaminated groundwater might flow once the plant closes starting early next decade.

The report is to consider methods of buying the land, if residents are interested, while allowing them to continue living on the property for now but eventually transferring full title to DOE. Other possibilities are implementing deed restrictions on water usage and buying water or mineral rights.

Although it is unclear how much the property is worth, economic development officials estimated four years ago that such a buyout would cost $15 million.

The study area consists of 9,500 acres containing an estimated 10 billion gallons of contaminated groundwater flowing from the plant to the Ohio River. Besides pumping and treating groundwater and cleaning up contamination, DOE spends $70,000 to $100,000 a year providing municipal water to 121 homes and businesses in the polluted area.

Plant neighbors have received free water since traces of trichloroethylene contamination were found in a few wells in 1988. TCE, once liberally used as a degreaser at the plant, is the chief groundwater pollutant.

Some who live near the plant have expressed skepticism. Advisory board member Linda Long, who lives on Ogden Landing Road just north of the plant, said she doubts the federal government could possibly offer her and her neighbors enough money to give up the land they have lived on for decades. Wells at her home and at the management area clubhouse are contaminated.

The consortium was formed in September 2003 to improve environmental cleanup at the plant. It was funded with a 4-year, $5 million dollar federal earmark through U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Advisory board member John Anderson said the work is less comprehensive than what was proposed by the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization, an economic development group that he directs. PACRO had called for an independent study of various uses of the plant once it closes starting in 2010, including the buyout scenario.