Unclear if Current Goal to Have All Waste Treated This Year Can be Met
Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
6/6/2014
As the Department of Energy and contractor CH2M-WG Idaho move forward this week with the next step in getting the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit in full operation, it is unclear whether DOE will be able to meet a commitment to the state of Idaho to treat all of the remaining liquid waste at the Idaho site by the end of this year. Late this week, CWI began heating up the IWTU facility after a recent planned outage to prepare for the introduction of steam and a simulated waste product. When asked this week when the facility is set to begin processing actual waste, both DOE and CWI said the schedule would depend on the results of the startup testing underway. “The Department remains committed to the treatment of the remaining Idaho tank waste, and we continue to make progress towards startup of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit. To date, all field work related to the planned outage has been completed. We will be able to better determine the startup time frame once the system tests are complete and we have communicated with the DNFSB further on additional assessments,” Danielle Miller, a spokeswoman for the Department’s Idaho Operations Office, said in a written response.
While the schedule for the start of actual waste processing at the IWTU is in question, CWI spokesman Erik Simpson said this week that the contractor still believes the goal of having all of the liquid waste at the Idaho site treated by the end of this year can be met. “TI-102 will determine what flows can be produced which in turn tells us what capacity at which we can operate; we believe that we can meet the milestone,” Simpson said in a written response. The DOE Idaho Operations Office, however, did not respond when asked if the Department still believed the goal can be met.
Second Attempt at Startup in Progress
The IWTU is intended to treat the approximately 900,000 gallons of remaining liquid waste at the Idaho site through a steam reforming process for disposal and to allow for closure of the site’s remaining waste tanks. DOE previously had a commitment to the state of Idaho to complete the liquid waste processing by the end of 2012, but in the summer of that year, startup of the IWTU facility was significantly disrupted by what has been described as a “pressure event” that occurred when the facility’s filters became clogged with carbon material during efforts to get it up to its operating temperature. The facility was shut down and DOE and CWI implemented a set of modifications, the last of which were completed last summer.
Once the facility modifications were complete, DOE and CWI worked again to get the IWTU to its normal operating temperature and pressure, and then moved forward with a contractor readiness assessment and subsequent DOE readiness assessment. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has raised questions over how the DOE readiness assessment was performed, however, and has noted that technical issues have continued to be discovered at the facility in the wake of the assessments. As a result, the Board has called on DOE to consider performing additional assessments prior to the introduction of actual waste.
‘Currently Things Are Going Well’
In late April, the facility entered into a planned outage period to allow for plant modifications to be completed and checks to be performed. “CWI has completed all field work related to this outage. The primary reason for the outage was to upgrade the hydrogen sample system eductor. The other work performed was work already scheduled to be performed during the post TI-102 outage,” Simpson said. Now that heat-up of the facility is underway, CWI expects to introduce steam as part of the next phase of the startup testing in about a week, according to Simpson. “Only time will tell whether or not technical concerns will be identified during this phase of the process. Of course we do not expect any but the purpose of integrated start up testing is to bring out potential issues with a new design,” he said, adding, “Currently, things are going well.”
