The fiscal 2020 budget proposal for the Department of Energy shows another $15 million for the nearly completed cleanup of the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) in upstate New York.
The budget request is roughly equal to the amount SPRU received in fiscal 2019 and triple the $5 million it was allotted in fiscal 2018. None of the budget documents released by DOE so far specify how the $15 million will be spent for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.
Contractor AECOM has a $146 million completion contract which it started work on in December 2007 and which is currently listed by DOE as concluding at the end of this month. Demolition of buildings, and most other environmental remediation, is complete at SPRU.
In 2018, contractor AECOM finished the two-year demolition of Buildings H2 and G2 on the property located at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, a research facility established by the Atomic Energy Commission. The buildings were constructed in the late 1940s to improve the chemical separation of plutonium for nuclear weapons. They were retired in 1953.
One remaining consideration is finalization of a draft state permit for the Energy Department to keep transuranic waste up to 10 years at the cleanup site in Schenectady County. The two TRU waste containers and 22 containers of mixed TRU waste stored in five shipping boxes were generated by teardown of H2 and G2. The Energy Department filed changes to the permit application in late December, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
A 45-day public comment period on the draft permit is expected between April and June. The TRU waste is due to be shipped to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico around 2025, officials have said.
