Based on conversations with the U.S. Department of Energy, the state of Idaho expects the long-awaited Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) will start operating in late 2020 at the Idaho National Laboratory.
However, the state for now will continue to assess financial penalties over DOE’s failure to meet the deadline for beginning operations at the plant, Idaho officials said over the last week.
With startup in sight for the facility to begin treating 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing liquid radioactive waste, Idaho Gov. Brad Little and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden agreed Nov. 7 to a plan for lifting the state’s ban on shipments of spent nuclear fuel for research at the Idaho National Laboratory. The state has not been allowed the federal agency to send used fuel for research at INL since 2013, Marissa Morrison Hyer, a spokeswoman for Little, noted by email on Friday.
The Nov. 7 agreement provides that once the IWTU is operating, the state will clear the way for the Energy Department to commence shipping 25 spent fuel rods to the lab from the Byron nuclear power plant in Illinois.
Under a 1995 agreement on removal of radioactive waste from Idaho, the Energy Department agreed to start converting the sodium-bearing waste into a more-stable solid form for disposal by the end of 2012. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit was built by that year, but has yet to work as designed.
Since then, DOE has made modifications to the facility and carried out some encouraging trial runs with a simulant within the past year. The federal agency hopes to hold a final test run early in 2020. Lab cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho must undergo a federal readiness review and file an amended hazardous waste permit with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality before the IWTU can operate.
The state has assessed fines daily since 2016 for its failure to start up the waste treatment facility. The penalties are currently assessed at the rate of $6,000 per day.
Idaho plans to continue assessing fines against DOE until it completes treatment of all of the sodium-bearing waste, Brian English, hazardous waste permits supervisor for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, said in a Monday email. State penalties are expected to reach $7.14 million by Nov. 30. The Energy Department to date has satisfied more than $5.6 million through a combination of cash payments and performance of supplemental environmental projects for the state, he added.
