The Department of Energy and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection are hammering out some type of legal settlement over shipments of mislabeled radioactive waste sent last decade to the Nevada National Security Site from the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, according to minutes of an advisory committee meeting posted online.
“Progress has been made on this agreement and is almost to a point where it will be shared with the … chains of command” for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and the DOE Office of Environmental Management, according to minutes of the Jan. 20 meeting of the DOE-chartered Nevada Site Specific Advisory Board.
It is anticipated that the agreement will be signed in the next several months, according to comments in the minutes attributed to Robert Boehlecke, DOE’s deputy designated federal officer for the panel.
The DOE “continues to work closely and collaboratively with the State of Nevada to reach a mutually beneficial resolution to regulatory matters resulting from the Y-12 waste issue,” an Office of Environmental Management spokesperson said by email Monday. “Those conversations are ongoing.”
An NNSA spokesperson declined comment.
The Nevada National Security Site is authorized to accept both low-level and mixed-low-level waste for permanent disposal. But the DOE revealed in July 2019 that dozens of containers of mislabeled waste were sent from Y-12 to the Nevada site between 2013 and 2018. The news triggered a sharp rebuke from elected officials in Nevada and prompted DOE to launch an agency wide review of hazardous waste handling, packaging, shipment, characterization and packaging.
The Y-12 contractor, Consolidated Nuclear Security, suspended shipments after learning that non-compliant weapons related material was sent to the Nevada site. A DOE report issued in 2020 concluded the problems that resulted in the mislabeled waste at Y-12 are not common at other sites in the weapons complex.
