A nuclear watchdog and the Washington, D.C.-based Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) differ on a Department of Energy proposal to ship up to 10,000 gallons of recycled wastewater from the Savannah River Site to a commercial low-level radioactive waste facility somewhere outside South Carolina.
In December, DOE published an environmental assessment, and invited public comments, on the first trial run of its June reinterpretation of what should be treated as high-level radioactive waste (HLW). The agency says some HLW presents relatively modest radiological risks and could be stored at disposal facilities for low-level radioactive waste (LLW).
As a result, the agency is considering options that could allow recycled wastewater from Savannah River to go to sites managed by EnergySolutions in Utah or Waste Control Specialists in Texas. Otherwise, it must be disposed of in a geologic repository – which the federal government does not yet have.
The Energy Department took comments on its reinterpretation – it says no HLW is actually being “reclassified” – between October 2018 and January 2019. Thousands of comments were received and 360 deemed “distinct” rather than form letters.
The Energy Communities Alliance, which represents jurisdictions near DOE facilities and has championed what it regards as a more risk-based approach to handling HLW, supports the idea. The South Carolina-based-Savannah River Site Watch (SRS Watch) opposes it.
The Energy Department must consider technically defensible alternatives “to address waste stored in our communities that could safely be disposed of in the shorter-term, rather than remain orphaned onsite while the politics of developing a deep geologic HLW repository [such as Nevada’s Yucca Mountain] persist,” ECA said in comments submitted Wednesday to DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
The ECA comments were filed by the organization’s nuclear policy director, Kara Colton, who added that a deep underground repository is still needed for DOE high-level waste.
Conversely, “no case is made for why there is a ‘need’ to do this, especially at this time,” SRS Watch said in its Feb. 7 filing. For example, the Energy Department has not explained if off-site disposal would be cheaper than processing the waste into a grouted form on site.
The SRS Watch comments, filed by its director, Tom Clements, favor the “no action” alternative, in other words maintaining the status quo at the Savannah River Site.
Currently, the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) recycled wastewater is returned to Tank 22 for volume reduction by evaporation, or is reused in saltcake dissolution or sludge washing, according to DOE.
The wastewater is produced by the DWPF and the Energy Department said it could be grouted into a more stable form either before or after it leaves the Savannah River Site. Before making a final disposal decision, the agency would first decide if the recycled wastewater meets its new standards for disposal as non-HLW.
The Energy Department said in a December presentation that this recycled wastewater test will be useful in the 2030s when tank closures are approaching completion and certain related facilities at SRS have been retired.
At the end of the assessment, the agency will either issue a finding of no significant impact or conclude a more detailed environmental impact statement is necessary for the wastewater project.
