The state of Idaho has fined the Energy Department more than $5.3 million for failure to begin operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The $5.3 million figure represents the total penalties as of Jan. 19, Natalie Creed, hazardous waste unit manager at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), said by email Monday. Enacted at a rate of $3,600 per day in 2015, the penalties were boosted to $6,000 daily as of March 31, 2017.
The Energy Department has been hit with the fees under modifications to a noncompliance consent order, which grew out of a 1995 settlement on nuclear waste storage at INL between Idaho, the Energy Department, and the U.S. Navy. The agreement said sodium bearing-waste at INL should be treated by 2012.
The IWTU is designed to treat 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing liquid radioactive and hazardous waste stored in stainless steel tanks. While construction was finished in 2012, the facility has never worked as intended. But recent tests by contractor Fluor Idaho have been encouraging.
“Fluor is planning to begin heat-up of the IWTU this week for the next simulant run. The results of the simulant run and other tests are needed before a plan for actual waste treatment can be finalized,” Creed wrote.. Last summer, IWTU operators started feeding a nonradioactive waste simulant into the facility’s denitration mineralization reformer.
The DMR is a cylindrical vessel that dries the liquid waste into a granular material. Other equipment at the IWTU perform additional treatment on the waste product, which is eventually placed into stainless steel canisters.
In a Jan. 23 presentation, the DOE deputy manager of the Idaho Cleanup Project, Jack Zimmerman, said the second simulant run last August was a major success. “Bottom line: Simulant run showed redesigned DMR works and can successfully treat the remaining liquid waste,” according to his presentation.
The upcoming third simulant run will last for 50 days, Zimmerman said.
The facility is currently in a maintenance outage, which should be finished this month, a DOE spokesperson said Thursday. An extensive outage is planned following the 50-day test to tackle any issues identified during the run and to upgrade process equipment to ready the plant for operations with sodium bearing waste.
The schedule for actual waste treatment at the IWTU is dependent on the results of this next surrogate run and other testing, Creed said.
The Energy Department retired a portion of the penalties assessed by Idaho through performance of supplemental environmental projects, some already completed. In June 2018, the DEQ agreed to the latest set of supplemental projects, allowing the federal agency to retire $2.19 million worth of daily fines assessed between April 1, 2017, and March 30, 2018. The total dollar value of SEPs approved so far is about $3.15 million.
The biggest environmental project approved in 2018, the Southeast Idaho Data Collection and Monitoring Project, should be finished in October 2021. It includes monitoring and drilling wells around the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer and Big Lost River drainage area to check pollution levels.
The Department of Environmental Quality has been in preliminary discussions with DOE about more such projects, Creed noted. The Energy Department must formally propose the next round of projects by the end of May and then the state reviews them in hopes of reaching agreement within 30 days.
