PHOENIX — The Department of Energy anticipates the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory to treat its first batch of radioactive waste by early April, the agency’s top nuclear cleanup officials said here this week.
Environmental Management Senior Adviser William (Ike) White reiterated his message, on the project nearing the finish line, to the Exchange Monitor on the sidelines of Waste Management Symposia here, attended by about 2,700 people.
During his speech on opening day at Phoenix, White projected a late March startup barring any glitches. Within 72 hours however, the DOE acknowledged a glitch this week, in the form of a small leak, could push things into April.
DOE and Jacobs-led contractor Idaho Environmental Coalition have done emissions testing on the facility to treat about 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing radioactive waste and “rad ops” should start in March absent any last minute quirks, White said.
Startup of the steam reforming technology plant “has never been closer,” Ty Blackford, the CEO and project manager of the contractor team, said in the hallway before the plenary presentations by White and other officials, including a pre-recorded welcome by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
A small simulant leak was discovered just prior to opening of the conference, Connie Flohr, DOE’s nuclear environmental cleanup boss for the Idaho National Laboratory, said during a Tuesday presentation. DOE and contractor staff are studying the problem but at the moment, it does not look like a significant setback to the startup of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), fed officials said on the sidelines of the conference.
In a Thursday email, a DOE spokesperson informed Exchange Monitor the small leak of liquid simulant was detected by a camera in the Denitration Mineralization Reformer. Workers will do a full shutdown and cool down of the facility in order to better investigate the leak.
Built by a CH2M-led contractor team in 2012, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) never worked as designed. A successor contractor, Fluor Idaho, spent years re-engineering and overhauling the plant before turning over the project to the new contractor team in January 2022.
On other topics, White expects commissioning of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, a final step before operations, to begin by the end of this year. The project is designed to triple the underground airflow at the underground disposal site for transuranic waste to 540,000 cubic feet per minute, or triple the current rate.
White also spoke of his recent visit to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to discuss the planned transfer of that DOE site from Environmental Management to the National Nuclear Security Administration by 2025. Managers from the two DOE entities planned this summer to submit a report on the process, which is supposed to wrap up by 2026, White said.
The report will cover both funding and responsibilities for certain duties, White said.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Management boss declined to say when he expects ongoing closed-door talks between DOE and the Washington state Department of Ecology over Hanford Site cleanup to conclude. The parties have been working, along with a federal mediation and the Environmental Protection Agency, since 2020 to amend the legally binding agreement on Hanford cleanup.
Likewise, when asked about the status of moving a few dozen containers of potentially combustible transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico out of the Waste Control Specialists site in West Texas, White declined to offer details. Texas wants the waste, stranded at the private site since 2014, moved away.
As he has since assuming the top spot at EM in June 2019 , White said removing the containers remains a priority and is something Environmental Management is working on.
