DOE to Seek to Renegotiate TRU Waste Milestones
WC Monitor
7/11/2014
Sue Cange, the Department of Energy’s acting environmental manager in Oak Ridge, confirmed this week that DOE plans to enter into formal discussions with Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation in hopes of changing milestones associated with the deliveries of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The changes are necessary because of the indefinite shutdown of operations at the waste repository due to a radioactive release that is still being studied. “Our milestones are embedded in the Site Treatment Plan, which is an agreement that we have with the state of Tennessee, and we have begun discussions informally with the state about the need to renegotiate some of those milestones,” Cange said in response to questions about the fallout from the WIPP problems.
Meanwhile, Oak Ridge officials have scurried to maintain compliance with the storage of waste during the crisis at WIPP. “Our largest challenge with regard to the current shutdown at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is finding storage for these processed waste and keeping it there until such a time that we can ship it to WIPP for permanent disposal,” Cange said. “We have both physical restrictions at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center as well as other restrictions associated with our safety basis for that facility that are causing us to look for other areas to store that waste.”
DOE’s current plan is to “process the contact-handled transuranic waste and once it is processed to move it back to storage facilities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory until such a time that we are able to ship it out for permanent disposal,” Cange said. “We also are going to delay the processing of the remote-handled waste, with the exception of a few containers that have low-activity remote-handled waste.”
DOE Puts Price Tag for Remaining Oak Ridge Cleanup at $12 Billion
WC Monitor
7/11/2014
The Department of Energy estimates that approximately $12 billion worth of cleanup work is left to be completed at Oak Ridge, according to Mike Koentop, executive officer at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management in Oak Ridge. The total is based on a cleanup completion date of 2046, which has continued to be pushed further into the future because of funding issues that required renegotiations with environmental regulators. The general order of priorities is to complete the demolition projects at the East Tennessee Technology Park before shifting attention to Y-12—and the mercury contamination there—and then to demolition work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The Fiscal Year 2015 budget is still under consideration in Congress. A House version of the budget would bump the Oak Ridge spending up to about $410 million, but that’s not yet been decided. Of the $385 million proposed by the Administration for next year, about $140 million would go for projects at ETTP, such as demolition work at K-27. The U-233 project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory would receive about $42 million, Y-12 cleanup projects would get about $44 million, and the Transuranic Waste Processing Center would get a little more than $75 million. Cleanup activities at ORNL would receive about $38 million. About $16.4 million would be dedicated to security operations for the cleanup program.
