Liquid waste management at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is in line to receive $1.05 billion in fiscal 2021, including a significant spike in spending on treatment activities that would cover the soon-to-be-operational Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF).
The $1.05 billion, if approved by Congress, would be a $144.7 million uptick from the $901.8 million enacted for the current fiscal year, according to the detailed budget justification for DOE’s congressional budget request for Environmental Management (EM).
All told, the agency wants $1.7 billion for environmental cleanup at the 310-square-mile site near Aiken, S.C. That would be about $70 million more than the $1.63 billion Savannah River received for fiscal 2020. Fiscal 2021 begins on Oct. 1.
The Savannah River Site houses roughly 35 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste in more than 40 underground storage tanks, generated by nuclear weapons production during the Cold War. About 10 percent of that waste volume is sludge waste, which since 1996 has been treated through the site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). The treated waste will be stored in stainless steel canisters on-site until the federal government identifies a permanent repository.
Through December 2019, the DWPF had produced 4,210 canisters of treated waste. In its lifetime, it is expected to reach 8,121 canisters.
The rest of the volume is salt waste that was being treated using a pilot process that ended in 2019 so workers could connect the Salt Waste Processing Facility into the rest of the liquid waste system, which includes the tank farms, DWPF, and other equipment. Tying in the facility includes connecting piping and transfer lines so the entire system can be integrated to accept waste during various parts of the mission.
Under the liquid waste management request, $970.3 million would go toward waste treatment operations. That would be a $150.2 million increase from the current budget and will cover processing at the defense waste and salt waste facilities, as well as tank cleaning and waste storage.
Construction funding would take a hit, mainly because key projects have been completed or are expected to wrap up this year and won’t require the same levels of funding. Construction for key waste facilities received $81.7 million in fiscal 2020, compared to $76.2 million in the proposal. That’s a drop of about $5.5 million.
As an example, the Salt Waste Processing Facility is scheduled this spring to begin operations. The plant will separate cesium from the radioactive waste, leaving a final salt solution that will be permanently stored on site in disposal units. Once operational, SWPF is expected to process at least 7.3 million gallons of salt waste per year.
The Salt Waste Processing Facility received $21.2 million in fiscal 2020 for completion of testing ahead of startup. It had its own, separate line item under the construction section of the budget. That is not the case for the 2021 document, under which the SWPF is shifted into the operations line item.
Less money would also be allotted in fiscal 2021 for construction of for Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU 7), a 30-million-gallon megavolume unit that will permanently store treated salt waste. Construction of the unit is nearing completion, with operations expected to begin by spring 2022. The Energy Department wants $10. 7 million for construction, a drop-off from the $40 million it received in 2020.
The federal agency also requested $65.5 million to build two similar units: SDUs 8 and 9. They are being constructed under the same budget item, which only received $20 million in the current fiscal year. The ramp up in dollars would ensure that construction of SDU 8 is finished by 2023 and SDU 9 a year later. The units are expected to cost $280 million in total.
Overall, the SRS liquid waste mission – which includes waste treatment, storage, and decommissioning of facilities – is expected to last until 2039 with an estimated cost of $33 billion to $57 billion.
In addition to the liquid waste mission, the Savannah River Site cleanup budget for 2021 would provide $650 million for other operations. That would include $317.4 million for nuclear materials stabilization and disposition, including processing of domestic and foreign highly enriched uranium (HEU) at the site’s H Canyon facility downblending of weapon-usable plutonium. In fiscal 2020, the budget item received $360.6, meaning the line would take a $43 million hit.
