Idaho officials are open to the idea of lengthening the lifespan of the Energy Department’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project past 2018, but DOE has yet to release a report detailing what such an extension might look like.
The facility, which employs about 700 workers, was built more than 15 years ago to treat and repackage some 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste dumped at the Idaho National Laboratory site in the 1970s and 1980s. Waste retrieval was finished two weeks ago, and roughly 8,500 cubic meters of waste remains to be treated and packaged. Under a 1995 settlement agreement between DOE and Idaho, all the waste must be shipped out of the state by the end of 2018.
Department of Energy officials are examining how the facility should be used after the end of next year, if at all. A likely future mission for the $560 million plant would involve treating transuranic waste shipped from other DOE sites around the country — the majority of it coming from the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, officials have said. AMWTP has numerous waste treatment capabilities — such as a remote-controlled super compactor — not found elsewhere in the DOE complex.
Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said last week that the facility’s success over the years has built up “confidence and trust” with state officials. Finishing retrieval of the current pile of waste boxes and drums, he said, could “pave the way for future (AMWTP) activities, whatever they may be.” He declined to specifically address the possibility of bringing in waste from other DOE sites.
Susan Burke, INL oversight coordinator for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, also did not want to address specifics of a future AMWTP mission, as DOE has not given her agency a formal proposal. But she said an AMWTP life extension to treat waste from elsewhere is something state regulators would be “amenable” to allowing. She noted the state has previously allowed about 700 cubic meters of outside transuranic waste into AMWTP for treatment over the years. Under the 1995 settlement agreement, any outside waste must be treated and shipped back out of the state within one year.
A DOE report recommending a future use for the facility was initially anticipated in fall 2015. Now, department officials will only say it will be released publicly before the end of this year. Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Sue Cange is expected to be briefed on the report in next few weeks.
Previous DOE reports predicted AMWTP would eventually be used to treat waste from elsewhere. A 1999 DOE environmental impact statement studying the facility’s construction said “additional quantities of waste” might come in for treatment from 14 other DOE sites. A 2008 department analysis also mentioned the possibility, saying other facilities “do not have the capability to process this waste,” and that “setting up duplicative characterization or other necessary facilities at other sites would not be practical or cost effective.”
DOE also sank about $10 million in upgrades into AMWTP last year, including new robotic arms to sort waste. The upgrades, needed to reach the 2018 waste treatment finish line, would allow the facility to keep running smoothly in future years if DOE started sending waste from other sites, contractor and DOE officials said last year.
The Idaho National Laboratory Site Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board two years recommended finding a future mission for AMWTP. “The facility has shown over time that it’s fully capable,” board Chairman Herb Bohrer said last week. “It would be a shame not to use it.”
Eastern Idaho mayors and economic officials also support keeping the facility running, considering it provides hundreds of jobs. Watchdog group Snake River Alliance has indicated it will oppose a future mission, however, saying Idahoans don’t want any more waste coming into the state.
A 2015 DOE presentation to the Citizens Advisory Board said as much as 20,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste could theoretically come from Hanford, with another 8,000 from Savannah River, 6,500 from Los Alamos, and significantly smaller amounts from other sites.
