For the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management to fully remediate 15 Cold War and Manhattan Project sites, it must dispose of over 11 million cubic meters of nuclear waste — and it needs a plan, according to a congressional watchdog.
In a report made public Thursday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Environmental Management (EM) needs better analysis, a “complex-wide disposal plan” and should also “create a forum for EM and cleanup site and disposal facility regulators to address regulatory constraints.”
The EM office deferred any response to the recommendations into the future, according to GAO. Coincidently or not, DOE is still waiting for President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead Environmental Management, Tim Walsh, to receive a Senate hearing.
“At least nine waste streams across the EM complex face barriers to disposal, and EM has not undertaken centralized planning to fully address these barriers,” GAO said.
The congressionally-appointed watchdog said Environmental Management’s senior adviser should add “headquarters oversight procedures that ensure reported waste streams are comprehensive in representing remaining cleanup at DOE sites.” Likewise, headquarters should assess the quality of the information in its baseline disposal data.
GAO urges Environmental Management to consider using an “optimization model,” which is a mathematical method used to find the best possible outcome-such as the lowest cost in various scenarios.
Environmental Management delegates its disposal planning decisions to its nuclear cleanup sites across the country rather than engaging in complex-wide planning, GAO said. A more uniformed approach would require EM to engage in multiple negotiations with regulators in various states, GAO acknowledges.
Currently, DOE has six of its own disposal sites and access to two commercial ones for low-level radioactive waste. The Department has the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. for transuranic waste.
But after the Barack Obama administration in 2010 cancelled the Yucca Mountain Project in Nevada, DOE has no deep geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste, GAO said. It might be 2065 before a repository is operating to bury the nation’s high-level waste deep underground, GAO said.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 as amended said Yucca Mountain would be the only site considered for permanent disposal of commercial spent nuclear fuel from power reactors, GAO said in the report.
Officials at DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy told GAO until congress passes a bill designating somewhere other than Yucca Mountain for spent fuel disposal, no such project can become reality. In the meantime, DOE has been concentrating on interim storage options.
Managers at DOE’s Hanford cleanup site in Washington state have estimated it would cost between $30 million and $35 million annually to store its high-level waste onsite, GAO said.
“GAO has previously found that EM could save billions of dollars by considering alternate disposal plans for certain waste,” according to the report. “EM has also not developed an integrated waste disposal plan to address factors affecting EM’s ability to complete its cleanup mission.”
“Our analysis shows that estimated volumes of EM’s remaining [low-level-radioactive-waste] LLW that will require off-site disposal exceed the current available capacity of offsite disposal facilities,” GAO said. The commercial entities that control the non-DOE sites, EnergySolutions in Utah and Waste Control Specialists in Texas, say they can expand capacity but would need regulatory approvals.
As for transuranic waste, which can include contaminated tools, rags and debris, WIPP can accommodate all the “planned” waste. But “unplanned waste could come close to exceeding WIPP’s capacity,” GAO said.
The GAO report published May 29 was sent to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright as well as the Appropriations and Armed Services Committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.
Drafting of the report was overseen by Nathan Anderson, who is director of GAO’s Natural Resources and Environment group. Anderson discussed the reports findings in a podcast available online.
