The U.S. Energy Department this week has proposed doing additional supplemental environmental projects (SEPs) in Idaho to offset state fines for the agency’s failure to successfully start the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on Tuesday received DOE’s written proposal for three more environmental projects to satisfy over $2 million in daily penalties accrued from March 31, 2017, through March 30, 2018.
“DEQ is in the process of reviewing the proposal,” Natalie Creed, the department’s Hazardous Waste Unit manager, said by email Tuesday. The state has now levied more than $3.8 million worth of fines against DOE since 2015, she added.
Penalties are currently accruing at a rate of $6,000 per day until the IWTU is operational. Energy Department officials said in February they anticipate the facility will be up and running by the end of 2018.
The Energy Department has already retired a portion of the financial penalty through various environmental projects tied to water quality, creek restoration, recycling, and wildlife management, according to a list provided by Idaho DEQ. Projects retiring $360,000 worth of penalties have been completed, and work is continuing on other DEQ-approved projects representing about $600,000 in additional fines.
The IWTU is intended to treat 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste, left over from Cold War-era spent fuel reprocessing at INL. The waste would be turned into a solid material and stored in canisters until it is shipped off-site for final disposal. Although construction was largely completed in 2012, the Energy Department wasn’t able to get the facility to work as expected.
The Energy Department has since redesigned the facility’s main waste processing vessel, the Denitration Mineralization Reformer (DMR), and planned to hold a key simulation test this spring.
