PIKETON, Ohio — The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has authorized Centrus Energy Corp. and American Centrifuge Operating LLC to discharge from its uranium-enrichment facility in Piketon into waterways that ultimately connect to the Scioto River.
The authorization was entered into the Ohio EPA Director’s Journal on Aug. 12, 2026, under NPDES permit 0IS00023*FD.
The permit applies to Centrus’ American Centrifuge Operating facility in Piketon.
The receiving waters identified by Ohio EPA are an unnamed tributary of the Scioto River and the West Ditch, in the vicinity of River Mile 25 on the Scioto River.
That language matters.
The permit does not simply authorize an abstract industrial discharge. It establishes specific points where water leaving the facility can enter waterways connected to the Scioto River and establishes the conditions under which those discharges are allowed.
What is Centrus authorized to discharge?
According to the permit, one of the primary discharge points, Outfall 012, handles non-contact cooling water and stormwater from the facility’s X-2230M Southwest Holding Pond.
Ohio EPA says samples from that outfall are intended to represent the discharge to the Piketon DOE Tributary of the Scioto River.
A second primary discharge point, Outfall 013, handles non-contact cooling water and stormwater from the X-2230N West Holding Pond. That discharge goes to the West Ditch.
The permit establishes limits for several substances and characteristics of those discharges, including:
- Total suspended solids
- Oil and grease
- Chlorine
- Cadmium
- PCBs
- pH
- Water temperature
- Flow rate
The permit requires Centrus to monitor flow daily and conduct sampling for various pollutants at specified intervals.
But there is another part of this permit that deserves particular scrutiny.
The radioactive question
The facility is part of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site, where uranium enrichment has been conducted for decades.
The NPDES permit itself does not establish a blanket authorization to discharge radioactive material at whatever levels Centrus chooses.
Instead, it contains a specific radiological monitoring requirement.
Ohio EPA requires that gross alpha, gross beta, total uranium and technetium-99 be sampled at the outfall locations at the frequency established by the facility’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission license.
The permit goes further.
Although the NRC license does not require it, the Ohio EPA permit states that quarterly sampling for transuranic radionuclides — including plutonium, americium and neptunium — should be conducted at external NPDES-permitted outfalls.
The results are to be summarized and submitted to the Ohio EPA Southeast District Office within 60 days following the end of each applicable calendar quarter.
That requirement is significant because it means the permit expressly contemplates radiological monitoring of water leaving the facility through its permitted outfalls.
The permit also establishes a warning system for cadmium
Cadmium receives additional scrutiny under the permit.
Ohio EPA established preliminary effluent limits of 7 micrograms per liter for the average and 13 micrograms per liter for the maximum.
If monitoring shows concentrations exceeding those thresholds, Centrus is required to notify the Ohio EPA within 30 days and explain the circumstances surrounding the exceedance and whether additional elevated results are expected.
The permit also establishes conditions under which Centrus must reduce cadmium discharges.
The public has a right to see the monitoring data
The permit requires Centrus to maintain sampling, analytical, monitoring, operation and maintenance records.
Those records generally must be retained for at least three years, with longer retention periods applying to certain records.
More importantly, the permit specifically states that reports prepared under its terms are available for public inspection at the appropriate Ohio EPA district offices, except for information that Ohio EPA determines is entitled to confidential treatment.
The permit also states that effluent data and receiving-water quality data are not considered confidential under the Clean Water Act and Ohio law.
That creates an important avenue for public oversight.
The question now is not simply whether Ohio EPA issued a permit.
It did.
The more important questions are what Centrus is actually discharging, how frequently it is discharging, what the monitoring results show, and whether those results demonstrate compliance with the permit.
Authorization is not a free pass
The permit contains explicit language stating that Centrus must comply with its conditions.
It requires the company to maintain treatment and control systems in good working order and operate them as efficiently as possible to achieve compliance.
It also states that a discharge of a pollutant identified in the permit more frequently than authorized or at a level exceeding the authorized limit constitutes a violation.
The permit further provides that violations can lead to enforcement action and potentially civil or criminal penalties under federal and Ohio law.
Ohio EPA also retains authority to modify, revoke or reissue the permit under specified circumstances.
In other words, the document is not a declaration by the state that everything leaving the Piketon facility is safe.
It is a regulatory authorization with conditions, monitoring requirements and enforcement mechanisms.
And those conditions give the public a roadmap for determining what is actually happening.
J News Network will continue examining those records.
