The Department of Energy proposes to pay for five environmental projects valued at just over $1 million to work off some of the penalties assessed by the state of Idaho over the agency’s failure to start treating sodium-bearing waste at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The rest of the $2.19 million penalty incurred for the 12 months ended March 30, 2019, would be transferred straight into the Idaho Hazardous Waste Emergency Account.
The penalties are issued by Idaho under the terms of a noncompliance order modified for the fifth time in 2015.
Altogether, Idaho has assessed the Energy Department $6.1 million in fines for failure to begin operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory by the end of 2012. The Energy Department has already funded or worked off more than $2 million in fines by providing supplemental environmental projects for the state.
The latest projects were detailed in a May 28 letter to Natalie Creed, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality’s Hazardous Waste Bureau chief, from Teresa Perkins, director of the Environment and Sustainability Division at DOE.
The projects, which would all be completed by the end of 2020, include providing $700,000 in funding for roughly half the cost for a sewer upgrade project for Snake River Junior High and Snake River High School in Bingham County, Idaho.
The second-largest project provides $175,000 for a riparian and wetlands restoration project. The effort involves installing thousands of feet of fencing to keep livestock out of streams, and steps to prevent sediment and other contaminants from entering the Upper Snake River.
Other less costly projects include funding a study on a landfill nearing closure in Butte County in order to determine if the existing soil cover is sufficient for retirement. The federal agency will also pay for replacement of woodstoves used by residents around the town of Salmon by providing less-polluting heaters, such as propane stoves. The federal agency would also underwrite training for environmental regulators in Idaho.
The Idaho penalties grew out of a 1995 settlement on nuclear waste storage at INL between Idaho, the Energy Department, and the U.S. Navy. The agreement said sodium-bearing waste at INL should be treated by 2012, which failed to occur, even after the state extended the deadline until 2014. In 2015, Idaho began assessing penalties at $3,600 per day, a figure later increased to the current $6,000 per day in March 2017.
The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit is supposed to treat 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing liquid radioactive and hazardous waste now stored in stainless steel tanks. Construction wrapped up in 2012, but the facility has never worked as planned.
Site cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho said earlier this week it finished a 50-day demonstration of the IWTU. During the longest trial so far, the plant treated 62,200 gallons of a nonradioactive simulant that serves as a proxy for waste from underground tanks at INL. The facility will be in a maintenance outage for several months to make needed tweaks identified during the trial run.
Once DOE and its contractor think the plant is ready to go live, the state Department of Environmental Quality will inspect the facility and observe the formal performance testing prior to operation. The Energy Department might request relief from more penalties after successful waste treatment has commenced, Creed said.
