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Superfund / NPL site · EPA Superfund SEMS through latest publishNPL FinalFEDERAL FACILITY

Oak Ridge Reservation (Usdoe)

This site is currently on the EPA Superfund National Priorities List and remains under federal cleanup oversight. Most-cited contaminant of concern: Mercury.

Bethel Valley Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee · ZIP 37830 · EPA ID TN1890090003

ContaminantsEquity contextHow we read Superfund data
CLEANUP TIMELINE

Listing-date and cleanup-phase enrichment from EPA's per-site SEMS profile is queued for a follow-up ingest pass. Until then, this section will populate from EPA's published timeline data.

Anomaly engine

Notable Signals

No notable signals at this Superfund site for the current ingest. Cleanup-phase and SEMS-action flags are deferred to a follow-up engineering pass.

Contaminants of concern · per EPA SEMS

What's In This Site

Each row pairs a contaminant with the medium it was found in (the exposure pathway). Hover any named contaminant for an agency-cited health-risk summary. Cited count = number of SEMS decision records (RODs and related) that name the pair.

ContaminantPathwayCited
MercuryHealth riskNeurotoxin. Methylmercury bioaccumulates up the food chain and damages the developing nervous system. (EPA, ATSDR)Soil7
Uranium-238Health riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen; chemical kidney toxicity exceeds the radiological risk at most environmental levels. EPA MCL 30 µg/L total uranium. (IARC, EPA)Soil7
ArsenicHealth riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen via inhalation and ingestion. EPA MCL 10 µg/L; chronic exposure causes skin, lung, bladder cancer and cardiovascular disease. (IARC, EPA, ATSDR)Soil6
TrichloroetheneHealth riskTCE. IARC Group 1 carcinogen — kidney cancer; suspected liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. EPA MCL 5 µg/L; common DNAPL groundwater plume contaminant. (IARC, EPA, ATSDR)Groundwater6
BerylliumSoil5
ChromiumHealth riskHexavalent chromium (Cr-VI) is an IARC Group 1 carcinogen via inhalation, causing lung cancer; trivalent chromium is far less toxic. (IARC, EPA)Soil5
TetrachloroetheneHealth riskPCE / 'perc'. IARC Group 2A probable carcinogen; central-nervous-system effects; common dry-cleaning solvent and DNAPL plume contaminant. EPA MCL 5 µg/L. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater5
Cesium-137Health riskBeta/gamma emitter (half-life ~30 yr); whole-body irradiator; legacy of nuclear weapons fallout and reactor accidents. (EPA)Soil4
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (Pcbs)Health riskPCBs. IARC Group 1 carcinogen; immune, reproductive, and neurological effects; bioaccumulate in fish and breast milk. Banned in 1979; persist as legacy contamination. (IARC, EPA)Soil4
1,1-DichloroetheneHealth riskVinylidene chloride; IARC Group 3 (inadequate evidence in humans) but liver toxic in animal studies; common TCE/PCE biodegradation product. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater3
1,2-Dichloroethene (Cis And Trans Mixture)Groundwater3
ArsenicHealth riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen via inhalation and ingestion. EPA MCL 10 µg/L; chronic exposure causes skin, lung, bladder cancer and cardiovascular disease. (IARC, EPA, ATSDR)Groundwater3
Benzo(B)FluorantheneSoil3
Benzo[A]AnthraceneHealth riskPAH; IARC Group 2B possible carcinogen; common combustion byproduct and creosote constituent. (IARC)Soil3
Benzo[A]PyreneHealth riskPAH; IARC Group 1 carcinogen; the prototypical PAH used to benchmark PAH-mixture cancer risk. EPA MCL 0.2 µg/L. (IARC, EPA)Soil3
CadmiumSoil3
Carbon TetrachlorideHealth riskIARC Group 2B possible carcinogen; liver toxic. EPA MCL 5 µg/L. Banned for most uses since 1986. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater3
Chloroethene (Vinyl Chloride)Health riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen — angiosarcoma of the liver. Final TCE/PCE biodegradation product; commonly found in groundwater plumes. EPA MCL 2 µg/L. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater3
Cobalt-60Health riskGamma emitter (half-life ~5.3 yr); used in industrial radiography and cancer therapy; legacy contaminant at federal sites. (EPA)Soil3
Dibenzo(A,H)AnthraceneSoil3
LeadHealth riskNeurotoxin. Even low childhood exposure impairs cognitive development; chronic adult exposure damages kidneys and the cardiovascular system. (EPA, ATSDR)Soil3
MercuryHealth riskNeurotoxin. Methylmercury bioaccumulates up the food chain and damages the developing nervous system. (EPA, ATSDR)Surface Water3
NeptuniumSoil3
Radium-226Health riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen (Ra-226 and Ra-228); bone-seeking radionuclide; alpha emitter. EPA combined MCL 5 pCi/L for radium-226+228 in drinking water. (IARC, EPA)Soil3
Technetium-99Groundwater3
Thorium-232Health riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen (alpha emitter); bone- and liver-seeking; long-lived. (IARC, EPA)Soil3
Uranium-234Health riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen; chemical kidney toxicity exceeds the radiological risk at most environmental levels. EPA MCL 30 µg/L total uranium. (IARC, EPA)Soil3
Uranium-235Health riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen; chemical kidney toxicity exceeds the radiological risk at most environmental levels. EPA MCL 30 µg/L total uranium. (IARC, EPA)Soil3
1,1,1-TrichloroethaneHealth riskMethyl chloroform. CNS depressant; ozone-depleting substance phased out under Montreal Protocol. EPA MCL 200 µg/L. (EPA, ATSDR)Groundwater2
1,1-DichloroethaneHealth riskSuspected carcinogen (EPA C/likely); CNS depressant. Common at solvent-contaminated sites as a degradation intermediate. (EPA, ATSDR)Surface Water2

Showing the top 30 pairs by SEMS citation count. 161 additional (contaminant, pathway) pairs are recorded for this site.

Drinking-water linkage · SDWIS

No Groundwater PWSes Serving Communities Within 3 Miles

No SDWIS public water systems drawing groundwater (or mixed sources) serve a community whose centroid sits within 3 miles of this site. Empty results are not a guarantee of non-impact — distance is computed to served-place centroids, and SDWIS does not expose individual wellhead locations.

Methodology: served-city centroid (TIGER 2020) is used as the PWS coordinate. Source-water classification from SDWIS primary_source_code; only groundwater and mixed-source systems are queried. Click any system above for its full SDWIS profile.

Equity context · ACS 2018-2022 block-group demographics

Who Lives Near This Site

Oak Ridge, Tennessee (no Census block groups within 1 mile — falling back to host city; disparity scores aggregated by centroid containment): a population of 31,535. Why we surface this →

POPULATION SHARE
14.7%

Low-income

POPULATION SHARE
19.5%

People of color

POPULATION SHARE
6.6%

Under age 5

POPULATION SHARE
18.6%

Over age 64

Source: Census ACS 2018-2022 (5-year) + USEPA-clone EJ blockgroup stats (raw indicators + EJ disparity mirror). NPL site proximity contributes to the national EJ pattern; indicator-level percentile and disparity scores are surfaced on the containing-county page and the state page.

Source. EPA Superfund Enterprise Management System (SEMS) · retrieved 2026-05-07. SEMS is a federal public-domain dataset under 17 USC §105.

What this is not. We report EPA's published Superfund record — site listing, status, and contaminants of concern as named in EPA's decision documents. We do not perform site visits, independent air or water sampling, or current-state health-risk assessment. NPL listing reflects EPA's Hazard Ranking Score at a point in time; it does not by itself describe present-day exposure.