The U.S. Department of Energy has as of Tuesday incurred $3.2 million in fines from the state of Idaho for failure to successfully start operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The facility is intended to process 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste produced during Cold War-era spent fuel reprocessing at the laboratory. IWTU would use a method known as steam reforming to convert the waste into a solid form for disposal.
Construction was largely finished in 2012, but DOE has had trouble getting the system to work as intended. DOE Idaho Deputy Manager Jack Zimmerman reportedly said in January that waste treatment could begin this year.
While Idaho’s Department of Environmental Quality is “encouraged by the progress made by DOE and their contractor on resolving issues with the IWTU,” the federal agency nonetheless continues to incur $6,000 in daily fines, Natalie Creed, DEQ hazardous waste program manager, said by email.
The Energy Department is working off much of the fines through performance of supplemental environmental projects (SEPs) in Idaho. The first penalty tranche of $648,000 has been retired, with former Idaho cleanup contractor CH2M-WG Idaho paying over $338,000 and DOE satisfying the rest of by completing four SEPs between 2015 and 2017.
In July 2017, the Idaho DEQ approved a DOE plan for six more environmental projects to satisfy the $648,000 in penalties that were assessed from Oct. 1, 2016, through March 30, 2017. During this period DOE was fined $3,600 daily. The penalties rose to the present rate after March 31, 2017.
The fines are assessed under a series of modifications to a noncompliance consent order first issued in the 1990s. The consent order was worked out between the state and DOE over hazardous waste violations at INL. The Energy Department has been penalized both for failure to empty the tanks where the liquid waste is stored and, separately, failure to complete treatment of the waste by the end of 2012, Creed said.
