2001 SSAB accuses agencies of backpedaling by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Excerpt from the Oak Ridger On-line. Those reasons should be addressed during a public meeting on the cleanup project scheduled for Thursday night, the release stated. The SSAB is also requesting that a transcript of the meeting be included in the administrative record on Upper East Fork Poplar Creek. The watershed approach is a strategy for protecting and restoring aquatic ecosystems and guarding human health, according to information from the Environmental Protection Agency. This strategy has as its premise that many water quality and ecosystem problems are best solved at the watershed level rather than at the individual body of water.
Watersheds are nature's boundaries.
They are the areas that drain to surface bodies of water and generally include lakes, rivers, wetlands, streams and the surrounding landscape. According to the SSAB press release, the watershed approach to remediation has been applied successfully to Bear Creek Valley, Melton Valley and soon to Bethel Valley, but it appears to have met a roadblock with regard to Upper East Fork Poplar Creek and also the Oak Ridge K-25 Site. The Upper East Fork Poplar Creek characterization area encompasses the Y-12 National Security Complex and is bounded by the base of Pine Ridge to the north, the base of Chestnut Ridge to the south and Bear Creek Valley to the west. To the east, the Upper East Fork Poplar Creek area extends to DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation boundary along Scarboro Road and includes a contaminated groundwater plume. Key contaminants in the Upper East Fork Poplar Creek characterization area include uranium-238, polychlorinated biphenyls and mercury.