The Nuclear Regulatory Commission could issue a Federal Register notice this week of a draft environmental review to allow Waste Control Specialists to move stranded Department of Energy transuranic waste to a different location within the company’s 1,300-acre property in preparation for its ultimate removal from Texas, a federal spokesperson said Tuesday.
The public notice, which could be out this week, concerns potentially-combustible transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a spokesperson for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said by email. The drums have been stuck in limbo at the Texas sites since 2014.
Once an environmental review is final, NRC staff could issue an order allowing Waste Control Specialists to move the waste from its current storage onsite to another place onsite, where it can then be prepared for DOE to remove it, said the NRC spokesperson.
The DOE last year endorsed the idea of building some type of new radiological enclosure at Waste Control Specialists to be used to prepare the waste for removal from Waste Control Specialists.
The Office of Waste Radioactive Materials Division at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality filed comments with NRC on the draft assessment last month, according to NRC records.
The containers were initially bound for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) but were rerouted to Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas, after an improperly remediated Los Alamos drum overheated and ruptured in the WIPP underground. The underground radiation leak effectively halted waste disposal at the salt mine for about three years.
Some of the remaining containers in Texas were found to share potential ignition characteristics with the Los Alamos drum that led to the WIPP accident.
Given the commercial waste site in Andrews County was only supposed to be a short-term stopover, the head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has been pushing since late 2019 to have the DOE Office of Environmental Management get the remaining drums out of Texas.
The acting boss of Environmental Management, William (Ike) White, has repeatedly said moving the waste is a top priority but has not publicly committed to any timetable. The COVID-19 pandemic did not help expedite matters either, DOE has said.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told Exchange Monitor recently it has referred the issue to the Texas attorney general’s office. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Waste Control Specialists declined comment Tuesday. DOE and the state attorney general’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
