The Energy Department and its contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) have summed up their arguments to the New Mexico state government for a new system of recording underground waste disposal volume.
Together with AECOM-led Nuclear Waste Partnership, DOE filed its closing statement with the New Mexico Environment Department on Nov. 28, following a hearing in late October on their requested permit modification for the disposal site near Carlsbad.
Under the revision to WIPP’s Brief description permit, the empty spaces between drums of defense transuranic material inside disposal canisters would no longer be counted as waste under the 1992 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act. “The definition of TRU waste is prescribed by statute, and it is clear. Void space, dunnage [typically fiberboard filler between drums], and other non-waste material are not TRU waste.”
This empty space should not count toward the Land Withdrawal Act’s disposal volume limit of 6.2 million cubic feet, or 176,000 cubic meters, DOE says. The agency has said this altered counting method, applied retroactively, would cut the waste volume counted against the cap by about 28 percent and prevent underutilization of the disposal site.
The deep geologic repository opened in 1999 to take defense-related TRU waste with a half live of 20 years or more typically found in soil, debris, and rags from old nuclear weapons sites such as the Idaho National Laboratory, the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, and SRS in South Carolina.
Under the current counting method, DOE has already empaneled roughly 91,000 cubic meters of material, more than half its limit, and some forecasts say it could reach the maximum allowed amount before 2030. The requested change would shrink the official total to about 63,000 cubic meters.
“There is ample room to dispose of existing legacy transuranic waste currently located at the generator sites” and stay below the 176,000-cubic-meter cap, NWP spokesman Donavan Mager said by email Thursday.
The National Academies report said there is currently about 156,000 cubic meters of TRU waste generated by DOE that’s either already empaneled, or expected to make the trip to WIPP.
That 176,000-cubic-meter limit evidently would cover the 6 metric tons of surplus plutonium being shipped from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina in a TRU waste form. It does not, however, account for 34 metric tons of plutonium that could eventually be bound for New Mexico after DOE canceled a project at Savannah River to convert the material to fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
The manager of DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office, Todd Shrader, has said plans are being made to seek state approval to mine additional waste disposal panels, beyond the 10 already scheduled.
The current permit revision application has been formally protested by three advocacy groups: the Southwest Research and Information Center, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, and Nuclear Watch New Mexico. Among other concerns, the organizations have said during the ongoing case the request is inconsistent with the legislative intent of the Land Withdrawal Act; is a major departure from past practice; and that leaks could happen inside overpack containers.
“Protestants argued without basis that the legislative intent of the LWA should be reviewed and considered, even though there is no ambiguity in the relevant portions of the statute,” DOE said in response. The agency also argued in its brief the state permit is a “living document” and is not bound by past practices.
The foes worries’ about the integrity of the inner container have nothing to do with waste volume and are outside the scope of the current proceedings, the Energy Department added.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico has also said previously that the waste volume record is just part of a process, which it opposes, to increase the amount of material bound for WIPP – including the 34 metric tons of downblended plutonium. The latter issue was not mentioned in the DOE post-hearing brief.
The next major milestone will be issuance of a recommendation on the DOE request by the state hearings officer to NMED Secretary Butch Tongate, which is expected within 30 days. Tongate would then be expected to adopt, modify, or set aside the recommendation.
