The Energy Department is extending the public comment deadline from Sept. 26 until Nov. 27 on a plan for on-site disposal of vitrified low-activity waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
The Aug. 6 notice from DOE did not cite a reason for the 60-day extension.
The agency on May 26 started taking comments on its draft Waste Incidental to Reprocessing (WIR) evaluation for low-activity waste once it is converted into a glass form at the Waste Treatment Plant being built by Bechtel.
The WTP is scheduled to start processing low-activity waste from Hanford’s 177 underground tanks by the end of 2023.
The WIR document suggests the low-activity material, once turned into a glass form and placed into canisters, is safe enough that it does not need to be shipped to another disposal location.
Before the material can be disposed of at Hanford’s Integrated Disposal Facility, key radionuclides will be removed to the maximum extent practical; dose standards for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and DOE must be met; and the treated waste will be in a solid form that does not exceed Class C low-level radioactive waste radionuclide concentrations, according to the Energy Department.
The NRC plays a technical advisory rather than regulatory role to DOE on Waste Incidental to Reprocessing under the Energy Policy Act of 2004.
The NRC will finish its draft detailed technical review of Hanford disposal of the vitrified LAW and file it with the Energy Department by Oct. 1. The federal regulator should file its final technical review with the Energy Department in May 2021.
The draft WIR evaluation covers about 23.5 million gallons of radioactive waste, less than half of the 56 million gallons of the material generated through decades of plutonium production for national defense. About 13,500 containers of vitrified waste will be produced and taken to the Hanford disposal facility.
The Energy Department and the National Academies of Science are studying options to address remaining low-activity waste that won’t be vitrified at WTP. High-level waste from Hanford must be sent to a deep underground repository.
Comments can be emailed to [email protected].
