Request Proposes Overall Funding Boost for Savannah River
Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
2/2/2015
Several missions at the Savannah River Site’s H-Canyon facility could be significantly impacted next year through the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request, released today. For Savannah River cleanup work overall, the request would provide approximately $1.34 billion, an increase of about $77 million largely tied to additional funding for tank waste cleanup. However, DOE’s request also includes significant cuts to the accounts that fund H-Canyon missions. “At this budget request with this type of number for H-Canyon there likely will be impacts in FY’16,” acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Mark Whitney said during a call with reporters today.
DOE’s request for spent nuclear fuel stabilization and disposition at Savannah River, which covers some H-Canyon activities, is $34.4 million, down $8.7 million from current funding levels. The request also includes $234.6 million for Funding for nuclear materials stabilization and disposition, a cut of $12.2 million from current levels. “We will continue to maintain operational readiness, which we are committed to do” at H-Canyon, Whitney said. “We will also support a limited amount of pre-staged spent fuel and that will be done in coordination with the Canadian liquid material receipt and processing. We are looking at that moving forward, looking at H-Canyon operations and what has to be done over the next several years and trying to ensure that it’s funded.”
Impacted programs include a new effort to downblend highly enriched uranium from research reactor fuel stored at the site’s L-Basin. The long-term campaign, which began processing in September 2014, was estimated to take a total of eight-to-10 years and process about 1,000 bundles of Material Test Reactor fuel and up to 200 cores of High Flux Isotope Reactor fuel. Savannah River officials have said the benefits of the project include freeing up space in the crowded and aging L-Basin pool, as well as meeting nonproliferation goals and providing a source of low enriched uranium to be used for commercial reactor fuel. Instead of the downblending mission, though, the FY 2016 budget focuses on providing “safe, secure storage” at L-Basin. “This reduction reflects the inability to support planned H-Canyon processing due to delays in the Salt Waste Processing Facility construction and operations and increased fees for foreign research reactor spent nuclear fuel receipts,” DOE’s request says.
Several other international missions have been on the table for H-Canyon, including processing of highly enriched uranium from countries including Canada, Germany and Belgium. Those programs would largely be funded by the foreign governments involved. The budget request does call for processing liquid HEU from Canada in FY’16. But it also does not mention continuation in FY’16 of a mission to process aluminum-clad spent fuel in H-Canyon as well as continue dissolving plutonium in HB-Line to create feedstock for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility project.
SWPF Would See Boost
DOE’s overall proposed increase in cleanup funding for Savannah River next year, includes an additional $98 million for tank waste cleanup, bringing the total to be spent for such work to $810 million. The additional funds would largely go towards wrapping up construction of the Salt Waste Processing Facility, which is intended to greatly increase Savannah River tank waste processing rates.
The funding boost comes after South Carolina has pressured DOE to increase funding for high-level waste tank waste cleanup as the Department faces a host of potential missed tank closure milestones. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control has threatened to levy up to $150 million in fines if DOE does not request adequate funding to meet its commitments, and is currently in dispute resolution with DOE on a milestone extension request. The proposed FY 2016 increase “is attributed to additional support for the startup of the Salt Waste Processing Facility in 2018 including infrastructure upgrades and facility tie-ins, construction and commissioning activities, and preparation of salt solution feedstock. Increase also supports tank closure and bulk waste removal activities to meet FY 2016 enforceable milestones and provides additional funding for Salt Disposal Unit #6 construction,” DOE’s request states.
