The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is considering a 10-year permit renewal for the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory.
The current permit expired June 4. However, INL cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho filed its renewal application six month prior to that date so it is allowed to continue to operate the facility, Natalie Creed, hazardous waste unit manager for DEQ, said by email Tuesday. The new permit would start whenever it is approved by the state.
The permit application features are no major changes from the current permit, Fluor Idaho spokesman Erik Simpson said by email Thursday.
The proposed permit renewal for hazardous waste storage and treatment at the facility will be the subject of a Nov. 7 public hearing at the Shilo Inn, 780 Lindsay Blvd. in Idaho Falls. The state agency is also taking public comments on the renewal application between now and Nov. 13, according to a public notice. A copy of the 80-page draft permit is available online.
The Department of Environmental Quality believes the facility sufficiently protects the environment and public safety to justify renewing the permit for container storage and treatment, including waste characterization and packaging.
The AMWTP has 12 different storage units and four waste treatment units. The facility also includes a “super compactor” to process 55-gallon drums of mixed waste prior to shipment to disposal at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. Some waste, which doesn’t meet WIPP criteria, goes to an EnergySolutions site in Utah.
The AMWTP was built to meet court-ordered waste disposal deadlines in a 1995 legal settlement between the state of Idaho, DOE, and the Navy. The agreement requires about 65,000 cubic meters of low-level waste and transuranic waste at INL, which came from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production site in Colorado, to be packaged and then shipped to WIPP by Dec. 31, 2018.
While that deadline might not be met, the AMWTP’s current mission is winding down. Of the 7,679 cubic meters remaining, 2,736 cubic meters must still be treated. The rest has been treated but has yet to be certified, or has been certified but hasn’t been shipped yet, Simpson said.
With current work dwindling, layoffs could start by year’s end, Idaho Falls Mayor Rebecca Casper said last month. The facility is believed to have a workforce of 700.
The Energy Department and the contractor have made no comment on layoffs, but DOE has said it should in that time frame issue a report on keeping AMWTP open for processing out-of-state waste. This could require modification to the 1995 settlement, which basically says any out-of-state waste cannot remain in Idaho longer than a year.
“This a routine permit renewal and does not deal directly with possible future missions of the AMWTP,” Creed said.
