The U.S. Energy Department will provide the University of Arkansas with $10 million to complete the environmental remediation of the Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR).
Two members of the state’s congressional delegation, Sen. John Boozman (R) and Rep. Steve Womack (R), announced the funding this week. The money is included in the fiscal 2018 omnibus budget, which President Donald Trump signed into law on March 23.
“A decades-old problem will now be eliminated and that will benefit the University and the state of Arkansas for generations to come,” University of Arkansas Chancellor Joe Steinmetz said a Thursday press release.
The 20-megawat sodium-cooled nuclear test reactor was built in 1968 with backing from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. It was retired in the early 1970s, with the reactor defueled and its coolant removed. SEFOR in 1975 was transferred to the university, which used it for research purposes for about 11 years.
The university effectively became the reactor’s caretaker, but the Department of Energy was made responsible for its cleanup under a provision of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. After it received a $1.9 million grant from DOE, the university had a remediation plan drawn up between 2009 and 2011.
Decommissioning began in 2016, led by EnergySolutions. It should resume final decommissioning within a few weeks. The cleanup should be finished in early 2019, returning the site to greenfield status, according to the university.
The reactor containment building is about the only structure that remains to be taken down, university spokesman Steve Voorhies said by phone Friday. The reactor building takes up 3 acres on a site of about 620 acres, the spokesman added.
West Valley gets $75 Million Funding, Lawmaker Lauds Progress
Meanwhile in upstate New York, Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) on Tuesday praised the $75 million in funding that the West Valley Demonstration Project is getting in the final fiscal 2018 omnibus.
The funding level for West Valley is more than the $66 million included in the fiscal 2017 enacted budget.
Reed, who toured the site, lavished praise on the cleanup progress. Legacy waste disposition is now 93 percent complete, with contractor CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley LLC shipping over 150,000 cubic feet of waste off-site.
The congressman also said in a press release that demolition of the vitrification facility, which started last September, is now 55 percent complete. Also workers have removed the facility’s in-cell coolers, considered one of highest hazard tasks at the vitrification plant.
The West Valley site occupies roughly 200 acres of the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center. A commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at the site ceased operation in the mid-1970s. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) now owns the property. Congress made DOE responsible for its cleanup in 1980.
The West Valley spending came from the non-defense environmental cleanup portion of the DOE budget. That same portion of the budget also noted cleanup funding for “small sites” was increasing from $77 million in the fiscal 2017 enacted budget to almost $120 million in the final fiscal 2018 budget.
SEFOR is one of the small sites included under this budget line item.
