The Energy Department should make a “full evaluation” of Cold War sites now storing high-level radioactive waste to determine how much of it could safely be handled as low-level or transuranic waste, the Energy Communities Alliance said Monday.
That is one of a set of recommendations in an ECA report, which aims to build on the momentum started by a recently completed public comment period in DOE’s potential reinterpretation of what material constitutes high-level waste (HLW), Kara Colton, ECA’s director of nuclear energy policy, said in a news release.
The Energy Department must now publicly engage affected nuclear communities and stakeholders, and provide “a full evaluation of the feasibility, cost, cost savings, and potential site-by-site impacts,” ECA says in the report.
The Energy Department in October proposed to reinterpret the definition of high-level waste to focus more on its radiological risk to human health, rather than its point of origin. The comment period ended Jan. 9. The Energy Department was still reviewing comments in March, and has not disclosed what it plans to do.
Backers of such a move contend much of what is currently treated as HLW has a risk profile more akin to low-level waste or transuranic waste. Unlike HLW, disposal sites already exist for such material, they note.
Among the recommendations for the Energy Department in the ECA report:
- Revise DOE Order 435.1 on radioactive waste management to clarify waste will be handled and disposed of by its characteristics, not its point of origin.
- Determine “realistic” cost figures and revised timelines for waste disposal.
- Specify what waste at each DOE site would be affected by an HLW reinterpretation; which could clear the way for certain less-radioactive material to be sent to existing disposal sites.
- Work with New Mexico to modify the permit for DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant to remove a “blanket prohibition” on radioactive tank waste; and
- Outline what needs to occur for shipments to disposal sites to start under the less restrictive interpretation.
