Total penalties assessed by Idaho against the Energy Department for failing to start treating sodium-bearing waste at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) hit $4.16 million earlier this month, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.
The Idaho DEQ on June 20 approved DOE’s latest round of proposed supplemental environmental projects, which will allow DOE to retire all $2.19 million worth of daily fines incurred between April 1, 2017, and March 30, 2018, according to Natalie Creed, the state agency’s hazardous waste unit manager.
Most of the environmental projects, which DOE offered to do after consulting with DEQ, various Idaho natural resource agencies, and the Butte County Commission, are to be completed in 2019.
But the largest effort, the Southeast Idaho Data Collection and Monitoring Project, should be finished in October 2021. The project, which involves well drilling, data collection, and monitoring of the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer and Big Lost River drainage area, is valued at more than $2 million. It is intended to “better characterize the hydrogeology” of the aquifer, according to DOE.
The Energy Department submitted this last round of supplemental environmental projects to the state in May. As of late May, environmental work retiring $360,000 worth of penalties had been completed, and work was continuing on other DEQ-approved projects representing about $600,000 in additional fines.
The state has levied daily fines against DOE since 2015 for its failure to successfully start running the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at INL. The facility is meant to convert 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste, remaining from INL’s Cold War spent fuel reprocessing, into a solid material that would be placed in canisters pending final disposal off-site.
Although work on IWTU was largely done in 2012, it has never worked as intended. The Energy Department and contractor Fluor Idaho are testing the facility using a simulant this summer and fall. While DOE has publicly indicated IWTU might be ready for operation this year, it has yet to announce an actual startup date.
