The Energy Department’s Environmental Management Field Office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is studying potential strategies for dealing with combustible radioactive waste held at a private facility in West Texas.
Between 300 and 400 drums of waste from Los Alamos have been kept at Waste Control Specialists storage complex in Andrews County since 2014, directed there after a radiation release closed DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., to shipments of transuranic waste in February of that year. Of those drums, 113 contain “inappropriately remediated nitrate salts” – Cold War-era waste mixed with organic kitty litter substantially identical to the container from Los Alamos that blew open at WIPP.
DOE is “in the middle of a feasibility study for how we’re going to address treatment of those drums,” Doug Hintze, manager of the DOE EM Los Alamos Field Office, said Wednesday at the department’s annual Nuclear Cleanup Workshop in Alexandria, Va.
A Los Alamos EM Office spokesman said the study is intended to “determine the path forward” for the waste, but said additional details were not immediately available. The report is expected to be submitted to DOE in early 2018, which would be followed by an extended review.
“Nothing has been determined at this point,” the spokesman said.
Another 60 drums of inappropriately remediated nitrate salts remained at Los Alamos after the WIPP incident. As of Wednesday, Hintze said, waste from 35 drums has been mixed with an inert substance to prevent further combustion incidents. Completion of the treatment process at the nuclear-weapon laboratory, including processing 29 containers of unremediated nitrate salts, has been pushed back from September to April 2018. That waste will eventually be sent to WIPP.
The drums at Waste Control Specialists beyond the 113 containers of nitrate salts hold completely separate wastes that do not pose a similar danger, the Los Alamos spokesman said. The Energy Department has already sent about half of that “Type 1” waste to WIPP since it reopened to shipments from across the DOE complex in April, and expects to finish by the end of the year, Todd Shrader, manager of the agency’s Carlsbad Field Office, said Thursday at the Cleanup Workshop.
Texas Radioactive Materials Chief Seeks to Allay Concerns About WCS
It should not be long before financially troubled Waste Control Specialists announces a new potential buyer, Charles Maguire, the director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s Radioactive Materials Division, told industry representatives recently.
“I know some of you have expressed concerns … about WCS’s viability,” Maguire said on Sept. 6 at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste Summit in Summerlin, Nev. He noted, though, that the “the gates are open and they are receiving waste” at the Dallas-based company’s Andrews County complex.
Waste Control Specialists’ 14,900-acre property near the state border with New Mexico encompasses a number of facilities for storage of various waste types, including just one of four U.S. disposal sites for low-level radioactive waste.
The company has endured years of financial losses, and owner Valhi Inc. in 2015 agreed to sell WCS for $367 million to Salt Lake City-based nuclear services provider EnergySolutions. The U.S. Justice Department sued to stop the deal on antitrust grounds, and a federal judge in June ruled in favor of the government.
There continue to be industry rumors about the degree of progress that Valhi is making in its effort to divest Waste Control Specialists. In its latest 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Valhi said it is “actively pursuing third parties” for a deal.
“They are entertaining potential buyers. We probably should know very soon if they have one,” Maguire said. The state agency is eager to see “the next phase in WCS’s life,” he added.
Efforts to secure comments from WCS were not immediately successful this week.
Valhi has not ruled out shutting down the business. During closing arguments for the antitrust trial last spring, an attorney representing WCS said the company could be forced to close and cover its waste site if the EnergySolutions acquisition did not go through.
The court, nonetheless, sided with the U.S. Justice Department’s legal argument that the sale would create a monopoly in the domestic market for low-level radioactive waste disposal. Valhi and EnergySolutions parent Rockwell Holdco abandoned the buyout rather than appealing the court ruling.
Closure would have clear impacts on the nuclear energy industry and other sectors. For example: WCS provides low-level radioactive waste disposal services for Texas and 34 other states, according to its website.
Waste Control Specialists is also just one of two companies (the other being New Jersey-based Holtec International) making serious preparations to provide interim storage of used nuclear reactor fuel now housed at nuclear plants around the country. The idea is to safely and securely consolidate that waste until it can be placed in a permanent repository. In April 2016, WCS filed an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build and operate a facility able to hold up to 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel; management, though, last April asked the NRC to suspend review of the application pending the court ruling on the EnergySolutions buyout. The company has not publicly since then declared its intentions on interim fuel storage.
Maguire said the people of Andrews County, and for that matter the state of Texas, feel they have a partnership with WCS.
For example, the Texas Legislature, during its last session, suspended or reduced certain fees that the state receives on particular wastes disposed at the WCS site. The move was taken to help the financial situation at WCS, Maguire said. That shows the Texas public thinks “We’re in this with you … what can we do to make it work.”
Residents in that area of West Texas understand WCS has a lot of financial “skin in the game” and seem confident management will make vigorous efforts to protect employees and the public, Maguire said.
