DOE Won?t Meet Idaho Treatment Facility Startup Commitment

The Department of Energy won’t meet a Sept. 30 commitment to begin operations at the Idaho Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, a DOE spokesman said late last week. The milestone was included in DOE’s Site Treatment Plan for the Idaho site. “Start-up and testing activities at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, to verify that the facility will function as designed to ensure safe operations and protection of the environment, are ongoing. DOE has notified the State of Idaho that it will be unable to meet its commitment under the Idaho Site Treatment Plan to commence operations by September 30, 2014, due to delays in the start-up and testing process,” the DOE spokesman said in a written response to WC Monitor Sept. 26. “The Department remains committed to treating the radioactive tank wastes in a safe, protective, and compliant manner,” the spokesman added.

The IWTU is intended to treat approximately 900,000 gallons of liquid waste that remains at the Idaho site through a steam reforming process for disposal and to allow for closure of the site’s remaining waste tanks. DOE previously committed to the state of Idaho to have the waste processed by the end of 2012, but in the summer of that year, startup of the IWTU facility was significantly disrupted by what has been described as a “pressure event” that occurred when the facility’s filters became clogged with carbon material during efforts to get it up to its operating temperature. Since then, DOE and contractor CH2M-WG Idaho have been working at another attempt to startup the facility. Idaho environmental regulators have said that DOE has also informed them that it won’t meet a commitment to have all of the waste treated by the end of this year.