Representatives of the nation’s regional low-level radioactive waste compacts have begun discussions on possible means for assistance to sustain operations at a financially troubled disposal facility in Texas.
The talks on the state-owned, privately run Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact facility are being coordinated through the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Forum. Officials from all 10 compacts spoke by telephone on May 13, and interested compacts are scheduled to discuss the matter again next Wednesday, executives said.
“Financial assistance was mentioned, but not explored in any detail” during the initial call, Earl Fordham, chair and executive director of the Northwest Interstate Compact, said by email Monday.
At this early stage, there is no clear picture regarding what any assistance might involve and when a decision could be made.
“Obviously, a lot of compacts don’t have millions of dollars laying around to support our compact with some sort of deposit or some sort of financial assistance, but there may be other things that can be done. I want to explore this because I think it’s important,” Brandon Hurley, chairman of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Facility Commission, said during a May 7 meeting of the state panel.
Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS) has since 2012 operated the Texas Compact Waste Facility (CWF) on its disposal property in Andrews County, on behalf of the state. It is among four distinct waste facilities at WCS, which is one of just four licensed commercial operations in the United States for disposal of low-level radioactive waste.
The costs of the Texas Compact Waste Facility outstrip revenue, Hurley acknowledged. Last year, Waste Control Specialists said the facility was running an annual $10 million loss, collecting $24 million in yearly revenue against $34 million in operating costs.
“Negative financial results obviously cannot be sustained long term for any company,” Waste Control Specialists President and Chief Operating Officer David Carlson said by email Thursday. “WCS is committed to working collaboratively with the State of Texas to ensure the long-term viability of the CWF while continuing to operate safely and achieve the regulatory goals of our state partners. Financially viable operation of the CWF by WCS will prevent the State of Texas from ever having to operate the facility.”
The full earnings picture at Waste Control Specialists has not been made public since its January 2018 sale from holding company Valhi Inc. to privately held equity firm J.F. Lehman & Co. Prior to that, Valhi reported losing millions of dollars each year from its waste branch.
The low-level waste disposal compacts were formed under federal law, encompassing anywhere from two to six states, to oversee disposal of low-level waste generated within their borders. That covers a range of materials, including radioactively contaminated parts from decommissioning of nuclear power plants; soil, sludge, and other debris from property cleanups; and contaminated material from medical and federal operations. They employ different fundng mechanisms, including fees on waste leaving the compact.
The licensed facilities for disposal of low-level waste are: the WCS complex, including the Compact Waste Facility; EnergySolutions’ operations in Clive, Utah, and Barnwell, S.C.; and the US Ecology site on the property of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site near Richland, Wash.
The Texas Compact Waste Facility is open for nationwide business in a way the others are not. US Ecology can only accept waste from the Northwest and Rocky Mountain compacts. Similarly, EnergySolutions’ operation in South Carolina is available only to the member states in the Atlantic Compact.
The Salt Lake City-based nuclear services firm is not under such geographic restrictions in Utah, but the disposal facility only takes Class A low-level waste, along with other radioactive waste types. The WCS facility accepts Class A, B, and C low-level wastes, from least to most hazardous.
The site is primarily intended for waste from Texas and Vermont, the two members of the Texas compact. But it accepts waste from 34 other states at higher fees, both those unaffiliated with any regional compact and those that belong to other compacts.
Since opening for business, the facility as of Sept. 30, 2019, had accepted 27,784 cubic feet and 31,721 curies of waste from the compact states, along with 121,744 cubic feet and 710,641 curies of waste from other states. Its total capacity is 9 million cubic feet and 3.9 million curies.
Disposal charges are the sole source of revenue for the facility, with surcharges totaling over 30% of the price of disposal directed to the state, Andrews County, and Texas compact commission.
The higher costs for disposal from states outside the compact has been a barrier to increased business and revenue, according to WCS management. The company has had mixed luck in recent years in getting assistance on this issue from its home state. Reduced disposal charges enacted by the Texas Legislature in 2017 expired on Sept. 1, 2019, and Gov. Greg Abbott (R) vetoed legislation that would have extended those rebates by two years. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, state regulator for Waste Control Specialists, is considering a reduction in the curie inventory charge for the Compact Waste Facility.
Hurley raised the potential for assistance during this month’s meeting of the Texas commission, conducted remotely to help curb the spread of COVID-19. He said the topic had been raised in conversation with the executive director of one of the regional compacts.
“I have received a communication from an executive director of another compact, who called with kind of the very basic inquiry of, the compact waste facility is important to us, what can we do to help?” Hurley told the other commissioners. In a follow-up email to RadWaste Monitor, Hurley said he had promised not to identify the official.
That communication led to a call in April with Dan Shrum, executive director of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Forum, regarding using that group to coordinate the discussions, Hurley said. The early stages of that process are now underway.
“We discussed having the discussions at the fall meeting, but instead, we will discuss via phone call – the timing is more urgent as the Texas Compact needs resolution on the topic,” Shrum, a former EnergySolutions executive, said by email Wednesday.
The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Forum is an independent nonprofit corporation with membership including all 10 of the compacts and three of the states that host the commercial low-level waste sites: South Carolina, Utah, and Washington.
Shrum said he could not say what form the assistance might take. “I honestly don’t know,” he said in a telephone interview last week. “I actually threw some ideas out, but the compacts themselves have to decide among their commission on how they could do that. I don’t have enough working knowledge of each one of the compacts to understand how they could do that.”
Hurley sounded a similar message in his May 11 email: “I am not really sure what other Compacts can offer because I am not sure if they have money to contribute or if they can compel the generators in their states to ship waste to the CWF in Andrews.”
The Forum is a means to discuss the question, but would not make any decisions itself, Shrum said. That would be up to the compacts.
