The Department of Energy expects to issue a finding by July 2022 on the practicality of solidifying 2,000 gallons of tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington using concrete-like grout, federal officials said during an online public meeting Thursday.
But before DOE issues the finding, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was expected to check in by April with a technical evaluation of the department’s plan, Sherri Ross, a senior environmental engineer with DOE, said during a the meeting on the draft Waste Incidental to Reprocessing evaluation.
Under the proposed Test Bed Initiative at Hanford, contractors would pre-treat the 2,000 gallons of liquid supernate from Tank SY-101 using a system installed at the tank to remove radioactive solids through a filter and ion exchange column.
Pretreated waste under the Test Bed Initiative would then be solidified into a grout form at one of three sites: the EnegySolutions waste property at Clive, Utah; the Perma-Fix facility in Tennessee; or the local Perma-Fix Northwest plant in Richland, Wash., said Kerry Prindiville of Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions, the tank farms manager at Hanford.
DOE hopes the resulting mixture could be disposed of under the Waste Incidental to Reprocessing (WIR) standard for material that poses less risk to people and the environment than high-level radioactive waste.
Assuming it can be, the grouted waste would be sent to one of two low-level waste disposal facilities: EnergySolutions in Utah or Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas, Prindiville said. By the time it arrives at one of those destinations, more than 98% of the key radionuclides will be removed and the material will be eligible for shallow burial.
By contrast, high-level waste is supposed to go to a deep geologic site like the stalled Yucca Mountain property in Nevada.
The DOE is currently taking comments about the grouting initiative from states, tribes and other public stakeholders during a 90-day comment period that runs through Feb. 2, 2022, an agency spokesperson said Thursday in an email to Weapons Complex Monitor. Once this WIR determination process and a separate National Environmental Policy Act analysis are complete, DOE will likely make a go/no-go decision on the Test Bed Initiative.
Assuming DOE goes forward with the 2,000-gallon demonstration with grout, it would formally request a Research, Development and Demonstration permit under Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) from the Washington state Department of Ecology, the spokesperson said.
While DOE is focused on the startup of Bechtel’s Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford, which by 2023 is supposed to start converting low-activity tank waste into glass form, the agency continues to explore supplemental ways to treat waste that cannot be accommodated at the plant. There are 56 million gallons of radioactive waste in underground tanks at Hanford, residue from decades of plutonium production during the Cold War.
The 2,000-gallon Test Bed demonstration would be a long-anticipated sequel to a lesser test in 2017, in which three gallons of liquid, low-activity test samples were treated at Hanford’s 222-S Lab and grouted at the local Perma-Fix Environmental Services Northwest plant before being sent to Waste Control Specialists.
Providing the 2,000-gallon test goes well, DOE could pursue a 300,000-gallon trial, the agency has said.
