Technical issues appear to have derailed the Department of Energy’s plans to begin processing actual waste at the Idaho Sodium-Bearing Waste Treatment Facility this month. The facility has been put in a “safe standby mode” in the wake of a “system pressure event” that occurred during testing activities on June 16, according to a DOE release. The facility is expected to remain in safe standby mode for “the next several weeks” as the event is investigated, and actual waste treatment will be put on hold for “several weeks pending a thorough evaluation of system performance,” the release says.
The SBWT Facility, also known as the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, is intended to process the approximately 900,000 gallons of liquid waste remaining in the DOE Idaho site’s tank farm by the end of this year to meet a commitment in the Idaho Settlement Agreement. It remains to be seen whether the suspension of startup activities will impact DOE’s ability to meet the agreement; the Department has previously said that a seven-to-eight-month treatment campaign would be needed to process all of the waste. In late April, DOE approved the start of operations at the facility, with a phased start-up having been planned to ensure systems worked as design before the start of waste processing. DOE and CWI had previously planned for the facility to begin operation earlier this year, but the contractor chose to hold off to provide additional time for operator training.