WASHINGTON, D.C.— Grouting low-level radioactive waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, fully staffing a federal safety watchdog and other topics generated attention here Thursday at an annual meeting of a federal contractors group Thursday.
The DOE’s acting head of the Office of Environmental Management, William (Ike) White told the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) his agency has filed paperwork for a special permit to move ahead with shipping 2,000 gallons of liquid waste to commercial facilities at Waste Control Specialists in Texas and EnergySolutions in Utah “for grouting and disposal of the treated low activity waste.”
“Congratulations to Brian Vance and the teams at Hanford for getting the permit for the two newest options in our TBI [test bed initiative] demonstration submitted to the State of Washington last week,” White said in his prepared comments. Vance is DOE site manager at Hanford.
The research, development, and demonstration permit application to the state Department of Ecology is the next step toward using concrete-like grout as a backstop to Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, which will turn some of the site’s less radioactive liquid waste into glass by 2025 or so. The plant cannot handle all the less-radioactive waste at Hanford, according to DOE and the National Academies of Sciences.
The grouting itself will occur in Utah and Texas, a DOE spokesperson said Thursday in an email.
“The selection of these licensed facilities represents the best value to the government and will demonstrate the capability of two locations for grouting and disposing of the waste, adding options that are different from the 3-gallon demonstration completed in 2017,” DOE said in its June 8 letter to employees.
Once Ecology’s review and permit processing are complete, the state will send the draft permit out for a 45-day public comment period, a state spokesperson said by email Thursday.
More for the board
Also, during Thursday’s general session of the EFCOG conference, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chair Joyce Connery stressed her desire to get all five seats filled on the board.
The board is down to three members and is about to lose one of those. Designed as a five-member panel and established by Congress in 1989, the board provides safety input and recommendations to the secretary of energy about DOE nuclear defense sites.
Come October, the trio on the board will be down to two, when Jesse Hill Roberson retires. Roberson’s departure will leave Connery and vice chair Thomas Summers alone at the agency.
Earlier this year, President Joe Biden (D) announced plans to nominate Savannah River National Laboratory digital portfolio manager Patricia Lee to the safety board, though she had yet to receive a confirmation hearing in the Senate at deadline for Weapons Complex Monitor this week.
“There are a lot of reasons,” a full board is needed, Connery told Exchange Monitor after her presentation. “The practical running of the board” becomes more difficult with so few members, she said. With two people, the board can be functional, but the situation is far from ideal.
In addition to wanting “a mix of Rs and Ds,” meaning Republicans and Democrats, five people would provide a broader range of skills to the board, Connery said. She said Summers is deeply involved in emergency planning issues while Roberson, a longtime federal manager who once led the Office of Environmental Manager, brings deep institutional knowledge of nuclear cleanup, Connery said.
