A new agreement between the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) and the Department of Energy requires the treatment of 36 million gallons of radioactive waste held in Savannah River Site storage tanks by 2022. The agreement, which the two sided signed on Monday, is the first of multiple deals related to waste operations at the South Carolina facility that aims to remove the 36 million gallons in a given time frame.
SCDHEC announced Tuesday that, under the new deal, liquid waste work will be accelerated to make up for a key milestone DOE missed in 2015 –construction of the Salt Waste Processing Facility, which was finished in June of this year.
To date, DOE has closed eight SRS waste tanks and must close another 43 by removing the millions of gallons of waste for processing at the Salt Waste Processing Facility, along with pouring a grout mixture into the tanks to remove the environmental threat.
The new agreement also sets a certain amount of waste that must be removed from the tanks each year. DOE is expected to remove: 1.3 million gallons of waste in fiscal 2017; 2.45 million in fiscal 2018; 4.2 million in fiscal 2019; 6.4 million in fiscal 2020; 11 million in fiscal 2021; and 10.28 million in fiscal 2022.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz stated in a press release Tuesday that the agreement “underscores our continued commitment to furthering the Department of Energy’s environmental cleanup mission at Savannah River Site.” Chaney Adams, spokeswoman for Gov. Nikki Haley, also applauded the effort but added a bit of skepticism in a separate statement: “The federal government’s track record with other promises they have made isn’t a good one, so we will closely monitor DOE’s compliance with their end of the bargain.”
