Energy Secretary Rick Perry should not assume New Mexico will automatically accept a dramatic expansion in the mission of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) told fellow members the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.
While transuranic waste from DOE sites is shipped to the underground repository for permanent disposal, Udall cautioned the Energy Department should not think it will take diluted plutonium that was supposed to be turned into nuclear reactor fuel at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Udall spoke in support of an amendment from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to the Appropriations energy and water development bill the committee marked up Thursday. Graham withdrew the amendment, which opposed Perry’s recent cancellation of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) in South Carolina, but said he would pursue the matter on the Senate floor.
The Senate Appropriations bill would provide $220 million in fiscal 2019 to wind down the project, while the House Appropriations measure would provide $335 million to continue construction. Both bills are now awaiting floor votes in the respective chambers.
The Senate National Defense Authorization Act language apparently didn’t say anything about DOE’s plan to cancel the MFFF. However, Graham said the final version should make him “a happy man.”
The Energy Department for several years has sought to cancel the long-delayed, over-budget MOX project in favor of what is says is a cheaper and faster alternative to downblend 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium and then ship it to WIPP. The MFFF would instead be converted for production of plutonium nuclear-warhead cores under the approach Perry formally authorized earlier this month.
But Graham, a supporter of the MOX project, doubts the dilute-and-dispose option would be much cheaper. South Carolina does not intend to be a storage site for plutonium, he said.
The South Carolina Republican also questioned if New Mexico would agree to take the material. Udall then chimed in, saying, he has many doubts about the Energy Department’s course reversal. The Energy Department does not have a solid plan for its new approach, the lawmaker said.
“Every year somebody wants to put new nuclear waste and a new nuclear waste stream into WIPP,” Udall said.
For example: On May 18, a representative from New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) appeared at a House of Representatives hearing to argue certain waste from the West Valley Demonstration Project should be classified as defense-related and sent to WIPP.
As for the South Carolina situation, Udall said “real negotiations” are needed before WIPP is made part of a backstop plan for the canceled MOX project.
The Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which directly oversees the MOX project, has managed to anger both South Carolina and New Mexico by not working with local communities first, according to Energy Communities Alliance Executive Director Seth Kirshenberg.
“They need to involve people upfront – especially Senate and House delegations and the communities in the decision-making process when they change direction, Kirshenberg, whose organization represents communities near DOE sites, said by email. “ECA has asked NNSA leadership to meet directly with the local communities on these issues.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said both the Obama and Trump administrations supported canceling the MOX program. He noted WIPP is already the intended destination for 6 metric tons nuclear weapon-usable, non-pit plutonium being downblended at Savannah River.
New Mexico Official Cites Current Limits on WIPP
New Mexico Environment Secretary Butch Tongate said the currently authorized underground disposal space at WIPP is already spoken for.
There is enough DOE transuranic waste already destined for WIPP disposal to fill the currently licensed underground space, Tongate told Weapons Complex Monitor by telephone.
WIPP is limited to disposing of 6.2 million cubic feet of transuranic waste, or 175,565 cubic meters, under the 1992 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act. To allow the disposal facility to take more than the current limit would require congressional action, the cabinet secretary said.
Under the current method of counting the waste underground, the Energy Department has already empaneled roughly 90,000 cubic meters, more than half its limit, sources have said.
The state will rule within a few days on a proposal by DOE and WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership to adopt a new method of calculating the volume of waste underground. The proposed change would no longer count the empty space between drums as waste volume. The requested modification would essentially reduce the current disposal total from 90,000 cubic meters to 60,000 cubic meters.
The accounting change alone, even if approved, would not free up sufficient space for the additional material created by MOX project cancellation, Tongate said.
