For the past few years, federal officials predicted the former Fernald uranium processing plant near Ross would be cleaned up by the end of 2008.

        They had dreamed it would be done by 2006, maybe even 2005.

        Now those officials say there's a 50/50 chance that the Tristate's biggest environmental cleanup project will be done by the end of 2010.

        “At least we see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Lisa Crawford, president of the citizen group FRESH. “It's been 16 years now (since Mrs. Crawford and other citizens started raising concerns about Fernald pollution). And we've got 10 more years to go. I guess I'll be what, 55 by then? When we started this I was 28 or 29 years old.”

        On Tuesday, officials with the Department of Energy (DOE) and Fluor Fernald signed a “closure contract” to finish the cleanup project, which started in 1991.

        Counting the $2.16 billion spent so far and up to $2.6 billion called for in the latest contract, the total cleanup bill at Fernald would be less than $5 billion. Years ago, many expected the project to cost $10 billion, but the work has been slower than many have hoped.

        Fluor's previous contract listed the end of 2008 as the target completion date. The new contract moves the target date back to the end of 2010, while offering a $53 million bonus for Fluor Fernald if it finishes by the end of 2006, a long-held goal at DOE.

        On Monday, before the contract was signed, Fluor Fernald president John Bradburne told the As sociated Press that the 2006 goal was unlikely.

        “We'll keep 2006 in the cross- hairs, but our target date is 2010,” he said.

        There are two main reasons for the delay:

        • Last year, DOE capped Fernald's budget at $290 million a year for the next several years, about $22 million less a year than sought.

        “The impact of flat funding has led to a two-year change in the schedule,” said Glenn Griffiths, deputy director of the DOE office at Fernald.

        • Meanwhile, the cleanup itself has had problems, especially in dealing with the site's aging K-65 silos, which have held Fernald's most radioactive waste years beyond their design limits.

        A plan to cook the silo waste into glass-like chunks through a process called vitrification failed in 1996. Only this year have contractors started construction work on Plan B, which calls for moving the waste into new steel tanks, then encasing the waste in concrete blocks.

        It will be mid-2002 before waste begins moving from the silos, and longer still to encase it and haul it away, DOE officials said. Years ago, officials expected this work to be started in 1995.

        While progress has been slower than recently hoped for, the final results would still be an improvement over forecasts from 1991, when officials said the Fernald work probably would last until 2025 and cost at least $10 billion, Mr. Griffiths said.

        Neighbors say they never really bought into the more ambitious predictions. And they don't want to rush things now just to make a deadline.

        “I never ever thought they'd be done by 2006,” Mrs. Crawford said. “However long it takes, we just want it done right.”

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