The Department of Energy needs to “prioritize” a 2019 policy change that said much high-level radioactive waste is not hazardous enough to require deep underground disposal, a Washington-based group said in a report Thursday.
“DOE should re-energize its use of the HLW [high-level waste] interpretation, including pursuing a pilot implementation at Hanford for a single-specific waste stream,” the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA), said in its Disposal Drives Cleanup report.
“This would be intended to help foster broader support for the use of the HLW interpretation at Hanford, which could have significant benefits to DOE and the local communities near the site,” said ECA, an advocacy group for localities near DOE facilities.
Under then-Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, DOE in 2019 said much waste classified as high-level poses low-enough risk to allow disposal in low-level radioactive facilities.
In December 2021, President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, agreed that the “re-interpretation,” the term DOE has preferred over re-classification, passes muster with the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.
The policy shift has been touted by ECA, industry and other proponents, as a tool to hasten disposal of much defense waste stranded at various DOE sites until a Yucca Mountain-style deep underground repository is in place. Advocates say it would save the bids billions of dollars by decreasing the long-term storage at various DOE facilities.
But lawmakers from Washington state, where DOE’s sprawling Hanford Site is located, have successfully pushed back against implementation of the policy change there.
“All DOE has to show for this hard work, attention, and expense is disposal of 8 gallons,” of high-level tank waste from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, ECA said in the report.
The 43-page report also calls for completing the consent-based siting process for a high-level disposal site; picking a site for greater-than-class-C waste; long-term plans for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico and making the most of commercial disposal sites such as EnergySolutions in Utah and Waste Control Specialists in Texas.
“The Department of Energy appreciates the continued collaborative approach by the Energy Communities Alliance,” and looks forward to “continuing the dialogue” with ECA and other stakeholders, a spokesperson for the DOE Office of Environmental Management said via email Thursday.
