Sixty million gallons of high-level waste are contained in 177 huge underground storage tanks at the site. Some of these tanks have been leaking waste into the soil for years, and some are in danger of exploding from the buildup within of hydrogen gas. In addition to safely managing the tanks, DOE must eventually extract all waste from them to treat and prepare for disposal in an off-site geologic repository. These operations are complicated because high-level waste is composed of both hazardous and highly radioactive constituents. Total self-regulation of weapons production activities was deemed necessary because of the urgency and nature of the mission at hand.
Many states now have similar authority as well.
Meanwhile, DOE still self-regulates to ensure nuclear safety under the authority of the Atomic Energy Act. This self-regulation is accomplished through the use of internal directives that govern the management of radioactive materials and the safety of nuclear facilities. Thus DOE's environmental management activities are often subject to regulatory requirements under the purview of several different agencies. Moreover, cleanup activities are not uniformly regulated by either internal or external entities. This fragmented regulatory regime results in gaps and overlaps in regulatory equirements that make it extremely difficult to address diverse hazards in a holistic manner.