Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
1/31/2014
With Waste Control Specialists securing approval earlier this month to dispose of exempt low level waste in its RCRA landfill, many in the disposal and treatment industry have varied views on how the market will be impacted. The license approval granted from the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality has been seen as a huge win for WCS, although some are worrying that it sets a difficult precedent for pricing. “Look at what WCS has been doing incrementally, kind of chipping away at barriers. When they first came into being, they had a lot of barriers, they were nothing but a containerized, very expensive, over-engineered radioactive waste disposal site for two states,” one industry executive told RW Monitor. “Now they have clearly brought down the export/import hurdle, they’ve done at least one large component job, and now they have this new waste stream. They continue to eliminate the barriers which now make them more of a straight up competitor.”
WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald also highlighted this as a “significant development” for WCS. “Yes, the ability to dispose of Exempt waste in the most safe and secure way available in the marketplace today is a significant development for WCS,” McDonald said. “We have been overwhelmed this week by generators who are thrilled that we are in the market.”
The new bulk disposal enables WCS to offer less expensive options for disposing of the exempted waste, whereas before it had to be packaged at a higher cost before it was disposed. WCS aligned its license amendment for exempted waste from the TCEQ with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s exempted waste criteria last year, although administrative procedures with TCEQ needed to be worked out before WCS could move forward. With TCEQ approval, WCS can now offer disposal for most levels of radioactive waste. “This will allow WCS to offer a full suite of disposal services, from Exempt Waste to Class A, B & C waste,” McDonald said. “WCS expects to be fully engaged in the disposal of exempt waste very quickly. And long-term, we expect it to be a significant revenue source.”
‘Is It the Right Thing to Do?’
While this is seen a victory for WCS, some in the industry question whether this setting a dangerous precedent. Many are pointing to the ‘backdoor entrance’ of this exemption that could lead to the RCRA landfill effectively turning into Class A waste disposal site. “It’s almost like Texas is trying to turn a RCRA landfill into a very low level activity rad-cell, which is odd,” another industry executive said. “Up until a few years ago, [the exemption] was used here and there to deal with the waste left behind at a decommissioning site that was very low activity or something like that—not really used to license an alternative site if you will.” Others feel like it ignores the regulations that have been in place for years. “I can’t imagine that this is going to be good for our industry. It sort of circumvents the 10.CFR.61 process,” an industry executive told RW Monitor. “Yeah, it would be cheaper, but is that the right thing to do? I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like it is. We established disposal regulations for a reason.”
EnergySolutions also expressed doubt about the exempted waste approval. “EnergySolutions believes that the best option for disposing of radioactive material is to send it to a licensed facility where all of the required monitoring, long-term stewardship and performance assessments of the facility have been evaluated and approved by the appropriate regulatory agency,” EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said. “Regulatory agencies should evaluate the cumulative effects of continuing to approve multiple exemptions to the regulations to ensure appropriate protection to worker, the public and environment.”
From WCS’s perspective, the company is following NRC guidelines for exempt waste. “Just the opposite – this does not set any precedent,” McDonald said. “It uses the long established NRC criteria for determining what is exempt waste and disposes of it in a hazardous waste RCRA landfill. Are you aware that there is Exempt waste being disposed of in municipal solid waste landfills in Tennessee? Now that is a dangerous precedent.”
Effects on Competitors
The impact of WCS’s new service to its competitors including U.S. Ecology and EnergySolutions remains to be seen. Some observers see some impact to EnergySolutions, while others see it as ‘inconsequential.’ “It’s got to hurt, but how much is the question,” an industry official said this week. “It might be inconsequential. It’s not in EnergySolutions interest to fill up their site with cheap dirt.” EnergySolutions tends to deal with the more active Class A waste at its Clive, Utah facility so it really should not affect the company as much, other observers said. EnergySolutions did not comment on whether this would affect its business.
While the effects on EnergySolutions seem unclear, most observers agreed that U.S. Ecology is likely to see a significant impact. The company operates its own RCRA facility in Grand View, Idaho that can also accept exempt waste. “I would think that it would hurt US Ecology more because they are doing this; they want this market,” another industry official said. According to several observers, transportation is the major cost factor in dealing with this exempt waste, and the major producers of the exempt waste, the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), reside on the East Coast—closer to WCS rather than U.S. Ecology. This distance factor may harm U.S. Ecology’s business.
U.S. Ecology spokesman Alison Ziegler said, “U.S. Ecology has just received the permit so they haven’t really had a chance to study it to determine whether it impacts or not, but with the RCRA landfill, US Ecology has competed successfully against that landfill for years so they don’t see much short-term impact at all from it.”
How Quickly Will This Begin To Pay Off?
Some industry officials have questioned whether this will bring the revenue that WCS is expecting. Another major source of the exempt waste that would go into the RCRA cell stems from decommissioning activities at nuclear plants, but with many utilities considering some form of SAFESTOR, revenue from this waste stream may be years away. “In terms of it is a big market, it kind of depends on what happens in the decommissioning world so to speak,” an industry official said. “You’ve got three plants shutdown, one going to shut down at the end of the year, all announced last year that weren’t anticipated so that could be some large volumes of waste, but it’s not necessarily anytime real soon. They all want to do SAFESTOR to some extent, but it’s not clear how long that ‘extent’ will be.”
WCS, for its part, does not anticipate many nuclear plants staying in SAFESTOR for long. “At the end of the day, it is the states and local communities that will drive this issue – they want to see the material safely disposed of as quickly as possible,” McDonald said. “SAFESTOR will always be the initial reaction – but the move to actual disposal operations will take place very quickly. Just look at what is happening in Vermont.”
