13/11/2025
⚠️ Problems at the Piketon Atomic Plant’s Groundwater Treatment Facilities (October Report)
The Department of Energy’s newest Environmental Restoration report for October 2025 shows a month filled with groundwater treatment failures and outages at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon.
Three of the site’s groundwater treatment facilities — X-622, X-624, and X-627 — were knocked offline multiple times in October. These systems are critical for containing and treating contaminated groundwater tied to the plant’s decades-long legacy of pollution.
Here’s what happened:
🔹 X-622 Facility
• Taken offline October 15 for scheduled maintenance
• Returned to service October 16
• Went down again October 18 after a power outage damaged the programmable logic controller
• Out of service for 10 days, restored October 28
🔹 X-624 Facility
• Went out of service October 18 due to the same power outage
• Electrical failure required repairs
• Returned to service October 20
🔹 X-627 Facility
• Taken offline October 22 for a scheduled power outage
• The outage caused an issue with the human-machine interface
• Facility restored October 23
In short: a single power event knocked out two treatment plants, and another scheduled outage caused problems at a third. These facilities clean contaminated groundwater under and around the plant — meaning every shutdown delays treatment and risks migration of pollution.
The DOE’s own report documents the outages, but offers no explanation for the vulnerability of these systems or whether fail-safes exist to prevent repeated shutdowns.
For a site dealing with legacy radioactive and chemical contamination — and a community already carrying decades of concern — October’s report raises serious questions about infrastructure reliability, emergency preparedness, and long-term groundwater protection.
