The Department of Energy says no significant environmental impact should result from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina shipping contaminated process equipment, currently managed as a high-level radioactive waste, to a commercial disposal site for low-level waste.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management released environmental assessment documents Wednesday backing its conclusion that the grouted process equipment, while radioactively contaminated, does not pose enough radiological risk to merit disposal in a deep underground repository akin to the moribund Yucca Mountain Project in Nevada.
The plan to start shipping the process equipment this year to Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas, “does not constitute a major federal action,” DOE wrote in an email to the Exchange Monitor. The plan is for DOE to send two shipments annually to WCS from Savannah River through 2034, an agency spokesperson said.
The development comes roughly 18 months after the Joe Biden (D) administration decided to stick with a DOE interpretation issued during the Donald Trump (R) administration that some waste, formally considered high-level waste under the law, could legally be disposed of as low-level waste. In the absence of Yucca Mountain, that opened disposal options previously unavailable to DOE.
The equipment, a Tank 28F salt sampling drill string, glass bubblers, and glass pumps, is contaminated with reprocessing waste and is currently managed as high-level waste, the sort that needs to go into a deep-underground repository, DOE said in its no impact finding. The equipment otherwise would have no disposal path, the agency said.
“An accident or intentional destructive act involving the contaminated process equipment during on-site activities would result in minimal impacts to workers and the public,” DOE said. This is because the equipment would be inside a disposal container and encased in cement-like grout. The worst-case scenario should the container be dropped during transport is that the waste would need to be repackaged, DOE said.
The trip from Savannah River, near Aiken, S.C., to Waste Control Specialists is 1,400 miles, far shorter than the 2,200-mile trek to EnergySolutions in Clive, Utah, DOE said in the document.
In a pilot test, Savannah River previously sent eight gallons of recycled wastewater to the Texas site.
Since DOE issued its high-level waste reinterpretation in 2019, the agency has repeatedly said it is not “reclassifying” any waste. Some citizen groups have accused DOE of merely rebranding much high-level waste to get around not having a deep underground repository.
