The Department of Energy said Tuesday it plans a 90-day comment period concerning a proposal to grout up to 2,000 gallons of low-activity tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington and transport it out of state for final disposal.
In an initial 14-day comment period on the Test Best Initiative that ended last Friday, the advocacy group Hanford Challenge requested a public comment period that would run at least 60 days. That public comment period concerned the environmental assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act.
The 90-day comment period is a separate one on Waste Incidental to Reprocessing (WIR) that is being coordinated between DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a DOE spokesperson said. Both processes concern the Test Bed Initiative.
While the exact dates were not published yet, DOE said in a notice the upcoming comment period is expected to begin in October, with a public meeting to be scheduled in mid-November.
The draft WIR evaluation for the Test Bed Initiative (TBI) to determine if pretreated waste from tank SY-101 meets federal criteria to be managed as mixed low-level radioactive waste and disposed of in an offsite facility.
In 2017, DOE did a pilot test of three gallons of liquid, low-activity waste treated at Hanford’s 222-S Lab and grouted at the local Perma-Fix Environmental Services Northwest plant before being shipped out for final disposal at Waste Control Specialists in Texas. If a 2,000-gallon test is successful, DOE envisions using the grout process for 300,000 to 500,000 gallons of low-activity waste.
Low-activity waste makes up about 90% of the roughly 56 million gallons of tank waste leftover at Hanford after decades of plutonium production. By the end of 2023, DOE is scheduled to start converting low-activity waste into glass at the Waste Treatment plant being built for DOE at Hanford by Bechtel. However, federal studies have indicated the new vitrification plant will be able to handle only about 60% of the total low-level tank waste at the Hanford Site.
Questions on the upcoming public comment period can be sent to Jennifer Colborn, at [email protected].
