An amended record of decision published Tuesday clears an environmental hurdle for sending contaminated soil to the Nevada National Security Site from the Department of Energy’s section of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California.
The Nevada Nuclear Security Site (NNSS) expects to receive between 3-million and 4-million cubic feet of soil potentially contaminated with the low-level radioactive waste from the DOE Energy Technology Engineering Center at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California’s Simi Valley.
That is according to the final Supplement Analysis of the Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for the Continued Operation of the Nevada National Security Site. The document is updated every five years and the latest version from DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was rolled out in January.
The Nevada Site’s Radioactive Waste Management Complex disposes of low-level radioactive waste and mixed low-level radioactive waste from approved DOE weapons complex sites and certain Department of Defense sites, according to the document.
“The soils may not even be considered to be radioactively contaminated; however, there is a current agreement between the State of California and DOE that indicates the soil will be sent to a licensed radioactive disposal facility such as NNSS,” according to a footnote in the report.
Contractor North Wind Portage took down the last of the DOE buildings at the California center in October 2021.
The 2,850-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory is owned by Boeing and is being cleaned up by Boeing, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as well as DOE. California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control is managing the cleanup and in June 2023 published its long-anticipated Final Program Environmental Impact Report. The report said soil cleanup, once it gets underway, could last about 15 years.
DOE’s Energy Technology Engineering Center takes up less than 100 acres of the total Santa Susana Site. Starting in the 1950s and running through 1988, DOE did liquid metals and nuclear research at the center.
North Wind Portage, the longtime remediation contractor for DOE at the site, was awarded an $18.6 million task order in May. It was part of the $2 billion for Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning, and Removal solicitation.
