The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will hold a public meeting today in Washington, D.C., as part of its study of the viability of the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico to dispose of downblended plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The preliminary agenda for the 2:30 p.m. meeting lists testimony from New Mexico environmental attorney Lindsay Lovejoy; Debarah Holmer with DOE’s Office of Environment, Health, Safety, and Security (EHSS); and Virginia Kay, deputy director of the Office of Material Disposition at DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
There will also be a public comment session at the meeting scheduled for the Keck Center at 500 Fifth Street NW in Washington.
Congress, in its fiscal 2017 budget, instructed the National Academy to evaluate if WIPP could be a suitable destination for downblended plutonium. Before any shipments could occur, the plutonium would be downblended into a form that could not be used to make nuclear weapons.
Dilution and disposal of 6 metric tons of excess plutonium is already occurring at SRS. The 6 MT batch is separate from the 34 MT, which is being studied here, for compliance with the U.S.-Russian Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA).
The National Academy established a panel of 13 experts to review potential gaps in conceptual plans for downblending. The Energy Department wants to use the “dilute and dispose” approach and cancel the current disposal approach – the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at Savannah River, which has been beset by schedule delays and increased costs.
The research, overseen by the National Academy’s Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, is addressing issues ranging from transportation safety and security to WIPP operations and the potential need for construction of additional disposal panels.
This is the seventh of eight scheduled meetings. The first one was held in November 2017 and the last is set for June 27 in Irvine, Calif. The study is a 20-month project.
