The federal government has concluded certain tank farm waste in the 200 West Area of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Richland, Wash., can be treated as low-level radioactive waste.
DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said in a Friday press release that a Waste Incidental to Reprocessing (WIR) determination has been made for treated waste from the S, SX and U Tank Farms.
The WIR determination is the culmination of a process that includes a technical evaluation by DOE, public comments and an independent review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), DOE said in the release. The public comment period was carried out during February and March.
The bottom line is that “the waste, following separation, pretreatment and solidification, is not high-level radioactive waste and meets DOE criteria for management as low-level radioactive waste,” DOE said in the news release.
Under federal law, high-level radioactive waste would have to be disposed of at a deep geologic repository. Congress had planned for that to be the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, but that was effectively defunded during the administration of President Barack Obama.
Under the WIR, “DOE would dispose of the treated and solidified waste at one or more off-site, licensed, commercial disposal facilities outside of Washington state; potentially EnergySolutions’ Disposal Facility near Clive, Utah, and/or the Waste Control Specialists Federal Storage Facility near Andrews, Texas,” according to a DOE Hanford website.
“The draft WIR Evaluation is consistent with the Holistic Agreement between DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Washington,” according to a DOE Hanford fact sheet.
“The 200 West tank WIR does meet criteria for a WIR determination, unlike past WIR proposals from USDOE – if the waste is solidified prior to shipment,’ said Gerry Pollet, executive director of the citizens group, Heart of America Northwest, which monitors Hanford cleanup.
The organization does not want liquid waste being hauled cross-country from Hanford to Utah or Texas, Pollet said in an email response to Exchange Monitor. The group wants a DOE commitment “that it will solidify and treat the waste before trucking through Spokane or Oregon,” he said, adding that solidification could be done at the Perma-Fix facility in Richland, Wash.