The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit started its 10-day heat-up period on this week, marking one of the last major milestones before the long-delayed plant begins solidifying sodium-bearing, liquid radioactive waste at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.
Heat up started Monday evening, Natalie Walker, hazardous waste bureau chief with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, wrote in a Friday email to Weapons Complex Monitor.
After 10 days, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) would nominally begin 50-day demonstration run, Brian English, a manager with the waste and remediation division of the Idaho agency said in a prior email. If that demonstration goes to plan, the unit could start processing radioactive waste around the time the new Idaho Cleanup Project contractor, Jacobs-led Idaho Environmental Coalition, takes over.
The team began its transition Oct. 1 and was scheduled to take over cleanup work at the site around Jan. 1.
The new contractor has some breathing room after New Year’s, however. In August the state of Idaho gave DOE an extension until September 2022, from June 2021, to successfully fill the first canisters of granular waste at IWTU.
Meanwhile, the Idaho DEQ is taking public comment on modifications to the hazardous waste permit for IWTU through 5 p.m. Mountain Time on Nov. 12, English said. The modifications include: replacement of metal filter elements in the plant’s Process Gas Filter with ceramic filter elements; changes to the wet and dry radiological decontamination systems and other tweaks, according to a fact sheet on the public comment period that started Sept. 28.
The demonstration run scheduled to begin this week is supposed to wrap up around Christmas. After that, DOE, the state and contractor Fluor Idaho, will verify that fixes made following earlier tests show the IWTU is ready to run with radioactive waste. That is according to an Oct. 21 presentation to the Idaho Citizens Advisory Board by Joel Case, assistant manager of DOE’s Idaho Nuclear Technical and Engineering Center at the laboratory.
IWTU is meant to use steam reforming technology to convert about 900,000 gallons of highly radioactive sodium-bearing liquid tank waste, left over from spent fuel reprocessing, into a solid, granular form. A prior contractor, CH2M-WG Idaho first built the unit in 2012 but it never worked as planned. Fluor Idaho has re-engineered certain key parts of the facility in recent years, according to DOE.
The long delay in solidifying the sodium-bearing waste has cost DOE. Over the years, Idaho has assessed the federal agency more than $11 million in penalties, Walker said.
A $1.3 million penalty reduction was granted to DOE due to delays associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, Walker said. So as of Oct. 31, the tally stands at $9.7 million assessed against the feds, she added.
Steam reforming is an alternative to glass-making vitrification plants already used at the Savannah River Site, and planned for the Hanford Site, to solidify liquid radioactive waste leftover from Cold War-era national defense work, including plutonium production.