SAVANNAH, GA. – Despite its stops and starts, the Salt Waste Processing Facility is central to helping the Department of Energy address liquid radioactive waste at the Savannah River Site before 2024, a DOE executive said Wednesday.
Since coming online about five years ago, the plant has treated more than 11 million gallons of salt waste to remove cesium, Edwin Deshong, manager for the DOE Office of Environmental Management field office at Savannah River, told Radwaste Summit Wednesday.
“This year, we have prioritized facility optimizations across the liquid waste program, where we expect to increase processing by up to 9 million gallons of waste per year, enabling DOE to close waste tanks at an unprecedented rate,” Deshong said.
“Within the next decade, we anticipate operationally closing 11 of the remaining 43 tanks, an impressive closure rate and another sign of our commitment to reducing environmental risk,” Deshong said.
In response to a question from Exchange Monitor, Deshong acknowledged that SWPF is a first-of-its-kind technology that has experienced growing pains.
But new filters being installed at the SWPF should reduce clogging and increase continuing operation, Deshong said.
Meanwhile, the environmental prime at Savannah River is re-purposing a couple of 5,000-gallon tanks to serve as storage between two liquid waste facilities.
BWXT-led Savannah River Mission Completion said recently it is using the two tanks to serve as “lag storage” between the Salt Waste Processing Facility and the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). The DWPF vitrifies high-level waste at the site into a glass form for eventual disposal.
The recycled tanks will hold the cesium-laden waste, called strip effluent, transferred from SWPF before being processed at DWPF, the contractor said in the release.
In addition to administrative controls, “physical modifications, such as removing and installing new jumper hoses and nozzles, were also required,” in the repurposing, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a May report.
