Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
1/17/2014
After the recent discovery of a new crack in one of the Savannah River Site’s high-level waste tanks, officials are pointing to the potential leak site as another reason more funding is needed at the site. The crack is well above the waste level in the tank and is not leaking, but it is a concern given that the Department of Energy slashed funding for Savannah River tank waste in its most recent budget request, Karen Patterson, chair of the South Carolina Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council, told WC Monitor late last week. “Those tanks are way beyond their design life and all we hear is that there’s another leak site, another leak site, another crack, a potential leak site. Savannah River is very careful to keep the waste below all of the potential leak sites, there haven’t been any leaks in several years, but it’s only a matter of time in my opinion,” she said. “It’s more evidence that we really do need to get a move on and get the waste out. DOE needs to get the money from some place.”
The new crack in Tank 4 was discovered last fall during annual routine camera inspections of the tank, according to Rick Kelley, a spokesman for liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation. “We have an active tank waste management program and administrative controls in place here to ensure that liquid in the tanks stay well below any level of any known cracks. Apparently this level of waste has been at that level for over 20 years,” Kelley said. “There’s no impact on safety operations and there has been no release to the environment. We did do an engineering evaluation of that tank following the inspection and it found that it remained structurally sound.”
In DOE’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget request, funding for Savannah River tank waste cleanup operations was cut $183 millionbelow the current FY 12 level for a FY14 request of $644.5 million. The cut led the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control to warn DOE of the dangers of cutting funds to one of the highest-risk areas in the state, and warned of potential hefty fines for missed milestones (WC Monitor, Vol. 24 No. 34). The spending bill passed by Congress this week, though, bumped SRS tank waste funding up by $13 million (See Related Story). The discovery of the crack in Tank 4 also renewed a call from Tom Clements of Friends of the Earth for sufficient tank waste funding. “The crack underscores that the carbon steel tanks have a limited lifetime and that the waste in them needs to be removed and processed as soon as possible. As further degradation of the aging tanks is certain, the dangerous nuclear waste needs to be dealt with promptly and Congress must provide proper funding levels for that urgent mission,” Clements said in a statement.
