The Department of Energy and its cleanup contractor at the Idaho National Laboratory are making “minor instrument repairs” this week at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, which is still “heating up to begin simulant treatment followed by radiological operations,” a DOE spokesperson said Monday.
The spokesperson did not offer a projected date for startup of operations with simulant, or at what point sodium-bearing radioactive waste will start to be added to the simulant.
The status was unchanged as of Friday morning, DOE said.
An Idaho Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson said last week that heat-up was nearly finished and the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) could start operating any day now, with radioactive operations expected mid-month.
It’s been a long and grueling road for the $1-billion-plus steam reforming plant, which is designed to convert about 900,000 gallons of liquid, sodium-bearing high-level waste into a more stable, granular form.
Warming up the facility restarted in January after a December delay resulting from a leak of non-radioactive solids. This came months after Jacobs-led contractor Idaho Environmental Coalition completed a 65-day dress rehearsal of the plant last summer using simulant.
The facility was first built by a joint venture led by CH2M, now part of Jacobs, in 2012, but it never worked as intended. The successor environmental contractor, Fluor Idaho, spent years re-engineering key parts of the plant including the Denitration Mineralization Reformer, where superheated beads are coated with the radioactive waste, according to DOE. In January 2022 responsibility for the IWTU passed onto the Idaho Environmental Coalition.
The DOE and its Jacobs-led contractor “remain committed to the safe start-up and operation of the IWTU,” the DOE spokesperson said Monday. “Ensuring protection of the workers, the public, the environment, and the underlying Snake River Plain aquifer is our foremost priority.”
