The Department of Energy said this week it plans to extend the current Waste Control Specialists agreement for storing some potentially combustible drums of transuranic waste in Texas beyond the June 7 expiration date.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management published the notice of award for extension of the current sole-source contract Wednesday on a federal procurement website.
Waste Control Specialists has a $29 million contract for interim storage of transuranic waste, or greater-than-class-C waste, from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The DOE has issued a series of business orders to keep the transuranic waste at its Andrews County, Texas facility since 2014.
The Texas site has been holding drums sent there after the February 2014 salt truck fire and underground radiological release that shut down the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for nearly three years. Back in 2014, it was initially expected the material would stay at Waste Control Specialists for no more than a year.
For more than a year now, Texas officials have been pressuring DOE to remove the final 70-odd waste boxes from the Andrews County facility. It is a chore that the DOE Office of Environmental Management said it plans to accomplish but could not in 2020 due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality recently revised its state license to allow the material to stay in Andrews County until Dec. 23, 2022. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission had already issued its approval in December.
