A panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine kicked off two days of public meetings in Richland, Wash., on Wednesday as it studies supplemental processing of low-activity waste at the U.S. Energy Department’s nearby Hanford Site.
The data gathering will culminate in several reports by the National Academies on treatment of low-activity waste at the former plutonium production complex, said committee Chairman John Applegate. The panel is taking a wide-ranging look at whether DOE is taking the right approach with construction of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at Hanford.
The National Academies committee formed in 2017, and held its first meeting in December in Washington, D.C. It is conducting its review concurrently with an analysis on waste issues by the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). FFRDCs are research centers owned by the federal government, but run by contractors, such as universities or nonprofits.
Everything from technology to the cost-benefit analysis of the Waste Treatment Plant is getting a fresh look from the National Academies committee. The panel is comprised of more than a dozen engineers, chemists, academics, and officials who have worked at the Energy Department or other government agencies, as well as federal cleanup contractors such as BWX Technologies.
Committee members were treated to a history of the waste at the Hanford Site and earlier research on how to convert liquid waste into a more stable form such as glass – the vitrification approach to be used by the Waste Treatment Plant. Presenters included David Swanberg, a technology development manager at Hanford waste tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions.
There have been decades of studies and some false starts in addressing how Hanford should tackle 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste left by decades of plutonium production for the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Hanford houses 177 underground storage tanks, many of them leak-prone and single-lined.
Managing tank waste remains the most troublesome issue facing DOE, Washington state, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, since the 1989 signing of the Tri-Party Agreement that governs environmental remediation at Hanford, said Jon Peschong, director of DOE’s Office of River Protection’s One System Division.
The agencies have made significant headway on other operations, such as soil and groundwater cleanup, but tank waste has proven tougher to solve. “We know how to demolish structures,” Peschong said.
The WTP is meant to take the waste now held in the storage tanks and convert it into a more stable glass form. Bechtel National has indicated the project should start treating low-activity radioactive waste by 2022. Treatment of high-level radioactive waste must start by 2036 under a federal court order.
Low-activity waste refers to waste with a small concentration of radionuclides. Low-activity waste has an only slightly different regulatory definition than low-level radioactive waste, DOE officials said during the Wednesday presentations, which were webcast.
The Waste Treatment Plant was originally envisioned in the 1990s as a pilot plant. A team led by British Nuclear Fuels was the original contractor, Swanberg noted.
Bechtel became the new prime around the turn of the century. When construction of the WTP began in 2001, operations were expected to start in 2019 and the project was to cost $12.2 billion. In December 2016, DOE upped the cost estimate by $4.5 billion.
However, the project could take several years longer and billions of dollars more to completely address all the tank waste over the WTP lifespan, said WRPS process engineer Jeremy Belsher.
The latest what-if scenarios are outlined in the state’s System Plan 8 process, which represents an “informed guess” on what might transpire with WTP given updated assumptions, including the current plan to start direct feed low-activity waste before full production, Belsher said.
Applegate emphasized that the National Academies group was merely seeking information this week and would not make any recommendations in the near future. Additional meetings are planned within the next year, Applegate said. The review is scheduled to last 26 months.
Panel members stressed the process will look at a wide range of waste disposal options, which could presumably include the use of grouting for low-activity tank waste. In October 2017, Hanford for the first time shipped 3 gallons of low-activity radioactive waste off-site — to a nearby Perma-Fix Environmental Services facility to be grouted. The grouted waste will eventually be disposed of at the Waste Control Specialists Federal Waste Facility in Andrews County, Texas.
The two full days of meetings this week include presentations from DOE; Washington state, EPA; key contractors and other stakeholders, including tribal nations; the Hanford Advisory Board, and the watchdog group Hanford Challenge.
The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2017 recommended DOE have an analysis done of supplemental waste treatment options at Hanford and a peer review of the analysis conducted by the National Academies.
