DOE, TDEC, scientist to discuss environmental management at Sept. 22 seminar

A scientist and speakers from the U.S. Department of Energy and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation will discuss environmental management during a September 22 seminar. It’s the second of three new Community School seminars.

The September 22 seminar will feature Susan Cange, manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management; Ellen Smith, environmental scientist and Oak Ridge City Council member; and Chris Thompson, deputy director of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

The meeting will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 22, at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike.

Cange will introduce the DOE Environmental Management program, a press release said. Smith will present on the contaminants released and left behind from the federal government activities in Oak Ridge. Thompson will provide an overview of the monitoring of DOE’s activities in the Oak Ridge Reservation relative to public safety and the environment.

The press release said Cange is responsible for safely executing the environmental cleanup of the Oak Ridge Reservation, including the East Tennessee Technology Park (the former K-25 site), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Y-12 National Security Complex. She has 27 years of experience in various positions within DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Nuclear Energy, and Assets Utilization. She was one of the founding member of the reindustrialization program that transfers underutilized assets to the private sector and promotes economic development.

Prior to coming to Oak Ridge, she worked at the Environmental Protection Agency, helping to develop policy and guidelines used today in cleanup under the Superfund Program. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental engineering from Vanderbilt University, the release said.

Smith is a member of the research staff in the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She served on the Oak Ridge City Council from 2007 to 2012 and was elected to a new term in 2014. She served on the Oak Ridge Environmental Quality Advisory Board from 1991 to 2007 and from 2013 to the present. Smith has a bachelor’s degree from Carleton College in Minnesota, and a master’s degree in geology, water resources management, from the University of Minnesota-Madison. She is a graduate of the Municipal Technical Advisory Service “Elected Officials Academy.”

Thompson has held the deputy director position at the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation since August 2014. She is responsible for TDEC’s DOE Oversight Office, which is charged with ensuring that environmental impacts associated with past and present activities at the Oak Ridge Reservation are thoroughly investigated and monitored, in order to protect health, safety, and environment for citizens of Tennessee during environmental restoration and ongoing ORR activities and to assist in cleanup decisions, the press release said.

On September 29, the third of the Community School seminars will feature David Adler, program manager of DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management. Adler’s talk will be followed by a presentation by a panel composed of David Hemelright, past chair of the DOE Site Specific Advisory Board, and Donna Kindelbaugh, Oak Ridge Environmental Quality Advisory Board member.

The press release said the goal of the Community School is to expand knowledge and understanding of the environmental management processes and remediation actions in the Oak Ridge Reservation due to the legacy contamination remaining from the Manhattan Project, which produced uranium for the atomic bomb, and from post-World War II nuclear and high-tech operations and research.

The Community School is sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge and Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning. It is made possible by a grant awarded to the local league by the New Mexico Community Foundation.

The school is free and open to all, though advance registration is requested. Refreshments and child care will be provided. To register online, go to www.lwvoakridge.org or facebook.com/ORREEI. For more information or to register by phone, call (603) 498-9307.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

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