The Energy Department should prepare comprehensive assessments of Cold War nuclear sites now storing high-level radioactive waste to determine how much of it could safely be handled as low-level or transuranic waste, the Energy Communities Alliance said Monday.
That is one of a set of recommendations in an ECA report, which aims to build on the momentum started by a recently completed public comment period in DOE’s potential reinterpretation of what material constitutes high-level waste (HLW), Kara Colton, ECA’s director of nuclear energy policy, said in a news release.
The Energy Department must now publicly engage affected nuclear communities and stakeholders, and provide “a full evaluation of the feasibility, cost, cost savings, and potential site-by-site impacts” of the proposed new approach, ECA said in the report.
The agency should also hold public forums in the states of Washington, South Carolina, Idaho, New York, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas, according to ECA. This would allow DOE to better understand community and tribal interests around federal nuclear facilities, the organization said.
The Hanford Site in Washington state, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Idaho National Laboratory, and the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York are DOE locations where aHLW is currently stored on a “decades-long” interim basis, ECA says. This is due to the long political stalemate over the Yucca Mountain underground waste repository in Nevada. There is roughly 90 million gallons of solids, liquids, and sludge left over from decades of nuclear weapons production, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future said in 2012.
The Nevada National Security Site, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, and the privately held Waste Control Specialists facility in West Texas could take certain material now deemed HLW under more “performance-based” radiological standards, ECA said.
The Energy Department in October proposed to reinterpret the definition of high-level waste to focus more on its radiological risk to human health, rather than its point of origin. The comment period ended Jan. 9.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 define HLW as highly radioactive material that comes from spent nuclear fuel. This typically involves separating contents in irradiated nuclear fuel and target materials, such as plutonium. The high-level designation also extends to highly radioactive material that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says requires permanent isolation.
The current system has “unneeded conservatism,” ECA said. The group continues to push for congressional legislation on HLW designation as well.
The Energy Department was still reviewing comments in March, and has not disclosed what it plans to do.
The proposed reinterpretation does not eliminate the need for a permanent geologic repository, ECA said. An inventory of DOE-managed HLW and spent fuel from commercial power reactors will need disposal.
Any eventual change in policy probably won’t until late 2019 at the earliest, ECA said, because it would likely require a rulemaking to update federal regulations or additional review under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Critics say the Energy Department is seeking to solve its high-level waste problem by simply calling much of it something else. The Natural Resources Defense Council and the states of Oregon and Washington are among opponents of the change, calling it contrary to law.
Backers of reinterpretation contend much of what is currently treated as HLW has a risk profile more akin to low-level waste or transuranic waste. Unlike HLW, disposal sites already exist for such material, they note.
Among the recommendations for the Energy Department in the ECA report:
- Revise DOE Order 435.1 on radioactive waste management to clarify waste will be handled and disposed of by its characteristics, not its point of origin.
- Determine “realistic” cost figures and revised timelines for waste disposal.
- Continue to identify pilot projects for innovate waste management.
- Specify what waste at each DOE site would be affected by an HLW reinterpretation, which could clear the way for certain less-radioactive material to be sent to existing disposal sites.
- Work with New Mexico to modify the permit for DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant to remove a “blanket prohibition” on radioactive tank waste; and
- Outline what needs to occur for shipments to disposal sites to start under the less restrictive interpretation.
