The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management plans to forge a closer working relationship with the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB), according to a recent document.
“We look forward to future opportunities for regular interactions and discussions,” DOE Senior Adviser for Environmental Management William (Ike) White said in a May 29 letter to Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board Chair Jean Bahr.
White noted in the letter that he and Bahr on April 27 discussed closer collaboration between the two federal organizations.
In a January letter to White, Bahr urged DOE Environmental Management to connect more with NWTRB, a panel whose members are appointed by the president to advise Congress and the energy secretary on technical issues involving nuclear waste. The board was created by Congress through the 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act.
Bahr suggested a closer relationship with Environmental Management as her agency studies the Energy Department’s management and disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) and spent nuclear fuel. In particular, the chairwoman lamented that the cleanup office only provided an overview of its research into handling and transport of aluminum-clad spent nuclear fuel when the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board discussed this issue during a November meeting.
The Office of Nuclear Energy would head the department’s work on developing a repository for spent nuclear fuel and HLW, White noted in the letter. The Trump administration attempted in three consecutive budget proposals to persuade Congress to appropriate money to resume licensing of the planned repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev. Rebuffed each time, it instead is seeking $27.5 million in the upcoming fiscal 2021 for work on interim storage of radioactive waste.
The mission of the Office of Environmental Management is to oversee remediation of 16 sites contaminated by nuclear-weapon operations during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. It would communicate directly with the board while keeping the Nuclear Energy office “appropriately informed,” White stated.
Mark Senderling, Environmental Management’s deputy assistant security for waste and materials management, will be the office’s chief contact with the board, White said.
