The Energy Department has received two more years to come up with a plan for sending transuranic waste stored at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., to New Mexico for permanent disposal, but the waste must still be shipped out by 2030, according to a recently formalized modification to the site’s master cleanup agreement.
DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Washington Department of Ecology agreed to this long-expected changes to Milestone M-091 of the Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) in January, but the change order making the modification final was signed Feb. 26. The TPA governs DOE-led cleanup of the 56 million gallons of liquid nuclear waste, and other waste, at the site, which produced plutonium for the Pentagon’s nuclear arsenal during World War II and the Cold War.
At a high level, the modified Milestone M-091 still requires DOE to get transuranic waste — equipment and materials contaminated by elements heavier than uranium — and mixed low-level waste including nuclear material and hazardous chemicals to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., by 2030, the year a state permit requires that DOE start sealing up the underground repository.
However, DOE’s deadline for submitting a plan to certify that waste is ready to go to WIPP has now moved out to 2020 from 2018, according to a copy of the modification posted online. The modification, DOE and the other agencies have long said, is focused on accelerating transfer to WIPP of waste that has been stored above ground at Hanford since 2009.
Other transuranic and mixed waste at the site remains recoverable, but buried in the same pits where it was laid during the site’s plutonium-producing days. Under the modified milestone, the buried waste must be dug up by 2028.
That gives DOE two years to figure out how to get the as-yet-uncovered waste to WIPP before the agency has to start shutting that facility down. Contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation is cleaning up parts of Hanford where some of this waste is buried, but the company’s contract runs only through 2018.
Getting above-ground waste out to WIPP first — the facility is slated to reopen in mid-December, DOE says — will free up storage space at Hanford so buried waste, once dug up, can be safely stored on-site while it is categorized and prepared for disposal at the New Mexico site, according to the modified milestone.
Some local groups have argued that rushing above-ground waste to WIPP is the wrong approach. These groups claim DOE should get the buried waste out of the ground so the agency knows exactly what it is dealing with, and exactly how long it will take to prepare all the waste for shipment to WIPP.
“The commencement of new negotiations for TRU cleanup should not be delayed by a position that the TPA must first send the already-packaged wastes to WIPP before look at other TRU retrieval,” the DOE-chartered, citizen-staffed Hanford Advisory Board wrote in a public comment filed last year. “It is important to the Board that the cost, potential technical issues, and other problems that might derail the 2030 milestone be understood.”
Likewise, delaying retrieval of buried waste could “potentially result in the long-term/permanent storage of transuranic or mixed transuranic wastes on the Hanford site,” the indigenous Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation stated in public comments.
In its official response to these public comments, the Tri-Party Agreement agencies essentially stuck to their guns, saying the modified cleanup schedule for transuranic waste was “aggressive, but achievable,” and that the proposed timeline is “based on how long these activities have taken in the past (at Hanford).”
However, the recently modified milestone would begin gelling removal dates for retrieving buried waste on Sept. 30, by which time DOE must prepare an engineering alternatives study for capabilities and facilities necessary to get both above-ground and buried waste to WIPP by 2030. The timeline would solidify further by Sept. 30 2017, when DOE must provide target dates for acquiring these capabilities. By Sept. 30, 2018, DOE must set hard, annual milestones for these acquisitions, according to the modified agreement.
