The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) has thrown its weight behind the Department of Energy’s case for reinterpreting the definition of high-level radioactive waste based primarily on its risk characteristics and not its source of origin.
The organization, representing about 100 DOE contractors, filed its formal comments endorsing the reinterpretation shortly after the department proposed the idea in October. It has been joined by groups such as the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) and the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council, agreeing with DOE that much of what is now treated as high-level waste has traits similar to low-level waste.
“The interpretation of a waste form based on its risk-significance to the public and environment is a more robust technical interpretation than the existing source-based approach,” according to a letter co-signed by EFCOG Chair Billy Morrison and Sonny Goldston, who heads the organization’s working group on waste management.
If liquid waste now stored in large underground tanks at DOE sites “is determined to meet LLW disposal criteria and limits, then the waste should be classified and managed as LLW,” according to EFCOG. Licensed low-level waste disposal facilities could provide a safe and timely path forward for certain tank waste now treated as HLW. This approach is “certainly much safer than continuing to store liquids in aging tanks,” the group said.
The Energy Department has yet to publish data on what amount of high-level waste might be recategorized under the change.
The state governments of Oregon and Washington, along with advocacy groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, oppose the DOE revision, saying it could cause significant amounts of highly radioactive material from nuclear reprocessing to be left at places such as the Hanford Site in Washington state and the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York.
The advocacy groups claim DOE wants to define away its high-level waste problem because it has been unable to license an underground repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. Material now categorized as HLW must go into a deep geologic repository, and DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is legally only allowed to take defense transuranic waste.
The DOE comment period ended Jan. 9. The agency has said it has made no decision on any policy change.
