A nuclear fuel fabrication facility in South Carolina can ship its low-level waste to a storage facility in Idaho, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week.
The agency granted Westinghouse Electric Company a regulatory exemption to send low-activity waste to US Ecology’s disposal site in the Gem State from a Hopkins, S.C. fuel fabrication facility, according to a Federal Register notice published March 26. The commission found that there were no significant environmental or public health risks in granting the exception, the notice said.
Westinghouse asked NRC in February for permission to ship around 700 square meters of irradiated calcium fluoride sludge — a byproduct of nuclear fuel fabrication — to the Grand View, Idaho facility. The company had previously gotten the same go-ahead to send just over 1,400 square meters of the material back in December, the notice said.
The exemption went into effect March 12, the notice said, but it didn’t specify when the rail and road shipments to the US Ecology site would begin.
Westinghouse didn’t return a request for clarification by deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor.
Editor’s note, 04/05/2021, 5:01 p.m. Eastern time. The story was corrected to show that the waste will ship to a US Ecology facility.
