Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
4/3/2015
While the Department of Energy announced last week that it plans to work to establish a defense-only high-level waste repository, hundreds of canisters of vitrified waste at the West Valley Demonstration Project may be left out. DOE plans to “de-comingle” defense and commercial high-level waste and create separate repositories for each, meaning that the bulk of DOE waste could have a dedicated home. However, the waste from the former reprocessing plant at West Valley, which is also DOE’s responsibility, is considered commercial waste and would not be eligible “for a repository exclusively for DOE-managed HLW and SNF from defense or DOE research and development activities,” according to a report on comingling DOE released in October. DOE referred request for comment this week to the report.
The West Valley plant, in western New York state, is slated for demolition, and it contains 278 high-level waste canisters resulting from operations there. Cleanup efforts there are currently focused on transferring the canisters to an on-site interim storage location to allow the main plant to come down. It is unclear where the West Valley waste would stand in the Department’s priorities for commercial waste disposal. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz has said that the first priority for government action on commercial waste would be spent fuel stored at shuttered reactors. The high-level waste at West Valley is not the only material at the site without a final destination—unlike most of the Department’s transuranic waste inventory, West Valley’s transuranic waste cannot be sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for disposal because it is not considered defense waste.
Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), whose district includes the West Valley site, said this week that site stakeholders are seeking a path forward for the waste. “I am committed to working towards a final resolution to the nuclear waste at West Valley. Together with our partners: West Valley Citizen Task Force and [Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.)] we are pursuing many avenues, among them legislative solutions that would provide for remediation at the West Valley site,” Reed said in a statement.
The New York State Energy and Research Development Authority, which oversees the West Valley site, also said it would work on options for the waste there. “We are encouraged to see that the Department of Energy has a path forward with respect to the disposal of high level radioactive waste. We look forward to continuing to work with the Department with respect to certain material at West Valley,” Paul Bembia, Director of NYSERDA’s West Valley Site Management Program, said in a statement.
