The House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee on Friday will consider legislation reauthorizing appropriations for an Energy Department cleanup site in western New York state.
Rep. Tom Reed’s (R-N.Y.) H.R. 2389 would reauthorize the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP), through 2026 and redefine its radioactive waste as specifically defense-related.
The bill would revise Section 3 of the West Valley Demonstration Project Act by suggesting $75 million in annual funding through fiscal 2026. The Energy Department’s fiscal 2019 budget request for West Valley cleanup was over $60 million.
The West Valley Demonstration Project covers about 200 acres of the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center in the town of Ashford.
West Valley was home to a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the 1960s and 1970s. West Valley is unique in the DOE cleanup complex because it is not considered part of the Cold War weapons program. Although much of the waste at West Valley is similar to the transuranic waste deposited at the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, local officials in western New York say this is not an option for WVDP because it is not classified as defense waste.
Congress, in 1980, placed the Energy Department in charge of solidifying and disposing of the site’s high-level waste and decommissioning its buildings. Phase 1 decommissioning, which includes the demolition and off-site disposal of most above-ground facilities, should be finished by 2030.
