Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) wants Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to provide details about a Department of Energy plan to bury certain nuclear waste, now at the Idaho National Laboratory, at the Nevada National Security Site.
Titus said she was caught off guard by federal plans for the shipments from Idaho to the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), which are scheduled to happen some three years after DOE launched an investigation into mislabeled waste sent to desert test site from The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Y-12 only last summer resumed shipments of low-level waste to NNSS. The country’s defense-uranium hub temporarily lost its shipping privileges in 2019 after disclosure that it sent 32 mislabeled containers to NNSS over a six-year period.
“Since I learned about the proposed transfer of nuclear waste from Idaho, I’ve had concerns. After reports that portions of this waste were slated for the Nevada National Security Site, I’ve reached out to DOE,” Titus said in a Tuesday letter cited in a press release. “Until I receive satisfactory answers to all of my questions, I will continue to voice opposition to any transfers of nuclear material. Nevada is not America’s dumping ground.”
Both low-level radioactive waste and mixed low-level radioactive waste are shipped from the Idaho site to the NNSS, both of which the Nevada site is licensed to take, according to DOE. The wastes typically consist of old equipment, tools, debris, trash, soil and discarded personal protective clothing, a DOE spokesperson said in a Friday email. Idaho has been shipping waste to the Nevada site since 2009.
In her letter, Titus said she understands DOE is nearing the end of its efforts to remove transuranic waste and other radioactive material from the Accelerated Retrieval Project at the Idaho National Laboratory. The transuranic waste, which originated at the old Rocky Flats plant in Colorado has been stored at the DOE Idaho laboratory site for years, is now headed to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, Titus said.
The remaining 1% of waste from the Idaho Retrieval Project and up to a quarter of the waste from the lab’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Plant will be shipped elsewhere.
“I am particularly concerned because of that additional waste, 35% is scheduled to be shipped to the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS),” Titus said in the letter.
“I am deeply troubled by the fact that this was not disclosed to my office,” which learned of the process through news reports, Titus said. Titus adds that her Congressional district includes “the heart of Las Vegas.”
“The DOE “values its relationship with the State of Nevada, and strives to conduct waste disposal operations at the Nevada National Security Site with transparency, and with safety as its top priority,” an agency spokesperson said in a Wednesday morning email. “All offsite wastes shipped to and disposed at the NNSS are handled safely and securely and must meet all applicable federal and state regulations as well as the rigorous NNSS Waste Acceptance Criteria. We look forward to providing the information requested regarding the Department’s disposal operations at the NNSS and will work to ensure that these operations are conducted with the highest standards for transparency.”
Titus asks for details about the waste classification of the material being sent to the Nevada site, the amount of waste that would be sent, whether it complies with waste acceptance criteria for material such as low-level waste that can be sent to NNSA.
In late 2019, the state of Idaho and DOE supplemented a pre-existing 1995 settlement designed to hasten removal of DOE transuranic waste and spent fuel and high-level waste from Idaho.
