The Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office is finalizing a study into the economic viability of continued use of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) should it be allowed to process radioactive waste from out of state.
“I like to make these decisions based on good data and facts. To that end, we actually have a very detailed financial study going on right now,” Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management Anne Marie White said Tuesday during her keynote speech to the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste Summit in Henderson, Nev.
The evaluation is considering the cost of keeping AMWTP open to process out-of-state waste, compared to building similar facilities in one or more other states. The study is looking at “financial realities” and “what the waste streams might be,” White said.
“We are in the process of trying to finalize that study,” White said. “We haven’t made a decision there yet.” When asked when the study might be made public, she replied “soon.”
The AMWTP was built as a result of the 1995 legal settlement agreement to treat 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic and low-level waste. That mission, which began operations in 2003, is expected to conclude around the end of 2018.
Most of the waste was shipped to Idaho decades ago from the Rocky Flats facility in Colorado and other Energy Department sites. Once processed, the waste can be shipped to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board voted 7-4 in late June to urge DOE to extend the facility’s lifespan. But there has also been opposition in Idaho to importing other states’ waste.
“There are parties on each side of that discussion,” White acknowledged. “Obviously we have got to work with stakeholders.”
The 1995 legal settlement involving Idaho, DOE, and the U.S. Navy, currently stipulates any nuclear waste imported into Idaho must remain in the state no longer than 12 months, which could complicate continued use of AMWTP.
