The Department of Energy has determined that its current operating plans for the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site do not require a supplement to a comprehensive 2012 supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) on radioactive tank waste at the Washington state cleanup complex.
The agency concluded in a new analysis that altered plans for the plant, under which different operations would be phased in over several years, will not produce significant changes to its environmental impacts.
The 2012 EIS addressed all functions of the altered plans, other than building a storage pad for used ion exchange columns containing cesium that will be needed because the vitrification plant will initially not treat high-level radioactive waste, according to an analysis of the EIS completed in January. However, the storage pad does not present a significant new environmental concern, the analysis found.
Anne White, DOE assistant secretary for environmental management, on Jan. 17 signed an amended record of decision saying the EIS will be amended only to include information about construction and operation of the storage pad. DOE published the record of decision Monday.
Due to technical issues that have since 2012 slowed construction on parts of the vitrification plant that will process handle high-level waste, DOE now plans to separate out a waste stream of low-activity waste from tanks before sending it to the plant to be treated first. When the comprehensive Hanford Final Tank Closure and Waste Management EIS was completed in 2012, the plan was to separate waste into high-level and low-activity radioactive waste streams at the plant’s Pretreatment Facility and treat the waste streams separately at the same time.
A federal court-ordered consent decree altered in 2016 requires DOE to start treating low-activity waste at the vitrification plant no later than 2023, but gives the department until 2036 to have the Pretreatment Facility and High-Level Waste Facility fully operating with the rest of the plant.
