Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff on Tuesday authorized shipment by road of various forms of waste from the shuttered American Centrifuge project in Ohio to the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site.
The approval was signed on the same day that the NRC posted a Federal Register notice of its finding of no significant impact from the transports, and declared that a full environmental impact statement is not necessary for regulatory approval.
With the NRC environmental assessment complete, the commission itself does not need to approve the shipment plan.
Centrus Energy Corp. is decommissioning its lead cascade facility for demonstration of advanced uranium enrichment technology at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site. The Obama administration cut funding for the American Centrifuge demo project in 2015; Centrus kept the plant alive with its own money into early 2016, then announced its closure.
Three types of waste are to be shipped to Nevada, according to the Federal Register notice: solid radioactive, liquid radioactive, and low-level mixed waste. Centrus expects to make roughly 315 shipments in total, wrapping up next year.
About 180,000 cubic feet of solid waste would be shipped to Nevada within box containers and intermodal freight transport containers. That would encompass contaminated cascade parts, sealed centrifuge casings including contaminated cascade parts, and centrifuge assemblies and other cascade parts.
The liquid waste is oils extracted from the lead cascade facility process equipment as it is being dismantled.
The solid low-level mixed waste consists of electronic parts from the lead cascade facility. The material would initially be shipped to an EnergySolutions facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., “to substantially reduce surface exposure to leaching media,” the NRC said in the Federal Register notice. It will then be sent to Nevada.
Separately, unclassified low-level contaminated liquid waste would be processed at DOE’s Portsmouth Site, then would undergo incineration and disposal off-site rather than being shipped to Nevada.
The Department of Energy has also approved the truck shipments, which are underway, Centrus spokesman Jeremy Derryberry said by email Thursday.
NRC staff considered multiple potential environmental impacts from the waste transport. The classified material will be packaged and prepared for shipment within the lead cascade facilities, and should involve no land disturbances, the regulator said: “Therefore, the NRC staff finds that there would be no impacts to the following resource areas: Land use, geology and soils, water resources, ecology, meteorology, climate, air quality, noise, visual and scenic resources, and socioeconomic resources.”
Staff also determined that anticipated radiological impacts to workers would be under legal occupational dose limits for adults, and that radiation doses for the public would be no different than those from background radiation.
Given those findings, “the NRC staff has determined that pursuant to 10 CFR 51.31, preparation of an environmental impact statement is not required for this proposed action, and pursuant to 10 CFR 51.32, a finding of no significant impact is appropriate.”
The Ohio Health Department agreed with the NRC staff’s findings regarding environmental impacts from the waste shipments.
Centrus anticipates largely finishing decommissioning of the lead cascade facility in 2017, with closeout early next year, according to Derryberry.
