A batch of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) will complete its journey to disposal by truck after a fire near Chicago earlier this month on a railcar being used to transport it to Texas.
“The transloaded waste is being re-profiled to be shipped by truck,” a spokesperson for Veolia subsidiary Alaron Nuclear Services, which generated the material, said by email on June 26. “We are working with various commercial waste disposal sites as to the best option for disposal.”
Additional information was not immediately available at deadline Thursday for RadWaste Monitor. That included whether some or all of the LLRW would still be heading toward its original destination: Waste Control Specialists’ disposal complex in Andrews County, Texas.
The Dallas-based company said Monday it could not comment due to “ongoing commercial discussions.”
Waste Control Specialists operates one of four licensed commercial facilities for disposal of low-level radioactive waste. EnergySolutions has two, at Clive, Utah, and Barnwell, S.C., while US Ecology operates the fourth at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
Early on June 4, emergency officials responded to a railcar fire at a train switching facility in Bedford Park, Ill., about 20 miles outside of Chicago. The fire burned around 10% of the railcar before extinguishing itself after a few hours. No radioactive contamination is believed to have escaped into the environment, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) said in an event report filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The transport load was comprised of roughly 138,000 pounds of contaminated dry-activity waste and metal debris such as tubes and motors, specifically designated as low-specific activity waste, generated by recycling operations through 2019 by Alaron Nuclear Services in Pennsylvania. A second railcar carrying another load of waste did not burn.
The blaze is believed to have been ignited by a reaction between pyrophoric zirconium dust generated by friction during transport and nearby contaminated building debris and other “combustible waste,” IEMA said. An informed source told RadWaste Monitor last week that “humping” of the railcar led to the fire at the Belt Railway facility. Humping, in railway terminology, is rolling a railcar down a small hill at a switching site to shift it to a new track.
“The material has been removed from the railcar and packaged with sand to mitigate fire hazards,” IEMA spokeswoman Rebecca Clark said by email Monday. “Material will be removed from the railyard upon completion of USDOT onsite inspection.”
The railcar itself is being sent back to Pennsylvania for cleaning, Clark added.
The Transportation Department’s Federal Railroad Administration is continuing to investigate the event, a spokesman said. He said he had no further information to add.
Wampum, Pa.-based Alaron specializes in decontamination, waste management, and other nuclear services. It is owned by the North America branch of Veolia, the France-based waste and water management specialist.
