Written testimony from a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) official last week, before the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee, adds more details to the state’s argument for classifying much of the West Valley Demonstration Project’s remaining waste as defense-related transuranic waste and shipping it to the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.
NYSERDA General Counsel Noah Shaw said 34,000 cubic feet of what the state considers TRU waste at West Valley is currently an “orphan” with no obvious path to disposal. He blamed the Energy Department’s position, since 1986, that the byproduct of reactor fuel reprocessing from 1966 to 1972 at the privately owned Nuclear Fuel Services facility is commercial rather than defense-related waste.
Much of the fuel reprocessed at the western New York site was from the N Reactor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, which was used for the dual purpose of plutonium production and electricity, Shaw said. Also, N Reactor fuel “sludge” has been placed in containers for storage at Hanford until it is ultimately shipped to WIPP, Shaw testified.
This buttresses the state’s case that West Valley’s waste isn’t really different than what is allowed to go to WIPP, the NYSERDA official indicated.
By contrast, the Energy Department currently views this same type of waste at West Valley as something akin to Greater-Than-Class-C (GTCC) Waste or GTCC-Like Waste. A final DOE environmental impact statement in 2016 on what to do with GTCC and GTCC-like wastes recommended shipment to generic commercial disposal facilities and/or WIPP.
But a subsequent DOE report to Congress last fall virtually eliminated the possibility of sending the waste to WIPP in the near term. The report noted the WIPP underground repository is not expected to resume full-scale emplacement until 2021 following its 2014 radiation release, Shaw said.
As far as West Valley is concerned, the DOE report “does not include the identification of either a specific disposal facility or a disposal technology,” Shaw said in his testimony.
The West Valley Demonstration Project covers about 200 acres of the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center in the town of Ashford.
During the hearing, Mark Gilbertson, associate principal deputy assistant secretary of energy for regulatory and policy affairs for environmental management, stressed DOE considers the material at West Valley commercial waste and therefore not eligible to go to a defense waste facility.
The panel was listening to testimony on a bill by Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) to reauthorize West Valley through 2026 and reclassify its radioactive waste as specifically defense-related.
