The Energy Department has to date spent about $785 million on its Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory, a DOE spokeswoman said, a tally that is more than $200 million over budget.
The system’s budget was capped at $571 million in 2010, while a 2006 estimate had said the facility — designed to treat 900,000 gallons of radioactive sodium-bearing waste — would cost just $461 million to build. Previous contractor CH2M-WG Idaho had also spent at least $90 million of its own money on the project due to the cost overruns, before Fluor Idaho took over in June.
The 53,000-square-foot facility has been largely complete since 2012 but has never functioned correctly in testing. As much as $5 million per month continues to be spent on the project, as officials look to solve several recurring glitches and fix equipment. Tests on a small-scale version of the facility’s problem-prone reaction vessel, the Denitration Mineralization Reformer, or DMR, are set to begin this month at Hazen Research near Denver.
Since October, DOE also has accrued fines of $3,600 per day — totaling more than $300,000 so far — from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality after missing the Sept. 30 deadline for the facility to begin operating. The state and DOE have yet to negotiate a new deadline. Fines will increase to $6,000 per day starting in April if the facility hasn’t begun treating waste.
Letters show DOE officials several times argued to avoid or delay the fines, but DEQ refused. “We do not intend to reduce, hold in abeyance, toll, or waive any fines or penalties provided for under the terms of the (agreement),” DEQ Director John Tippets wrote in an Oct. 31 letter to Idaho Cleanup Project Deputy Director Jack Zimmerman.
