Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
9/26/2014
Austin Master Services (AMS), a radiological engineering and services firm, received approval from the state of Ohio last week for the capablity to use its trans-load facility in Martins Ferry to receive, ship, and analyze containerized Technologically-Enhanced Naturally-Occurring Radioactive Materials (TENORM). With large quantities of TENORM arising in states as a result of increased fracking over the last decade, TENORM waste from oil and gas exploration has resulted in a booming business of radioactive waste disposal. AMS uses an analytical method to measure TENORM waste to determine if it’s suitable for disposal in a local landfill, which usually have strict standards on how much radiation is allowed, or if the waste needs to be shipped to a low-level waste disposal facility. “We are permitted to perform a turnkey service,” AMS Vice President of Operations Jack Bement told RW Monitor this week. “We have an approved analytical method tailored and patented to serve the oil and gas industry, so instead of the producers having to wait the 21 day in-growth period, we perform the study. We have developed a system that can analyze a container of waste in a matter of twenty minutes, instead of 21 days.”
The license approval from the Ohio Department of Health enables the company to receive some of the waste at the Martins Ferry facility, characterize it, and ship it for disposal. The license allows AMS to handle “processing storage, packaging, and shipment of radioactive material incident to surface decontamination of structures, components, and items for the purpose of unrestricted release” while also authorizing “surveys, characterization, and remediation of radioactively contaminated structures, materials, soils, and soil-like material” and the “receipt, shipment, and radiological analysis of containerized TENORM waste,” the license approval said. Bement said the company has also received regulatory approval from West Virginia for its analytical method, and Pennsylvania is currently in the works.
According to Bement, the greatest assets the company offers with its method and trans-load facility is the ability to keep the waste moving. “What we do is: take it, analyze it, and if it doesn’t meet that criteria, we can trans-load it and ship it to an LLW [disposal site],” Bement said. “We are quickly moving the material so it’s not sitting around.” In the past decade, increased activity in oil and gas exploration, especially in the Marcellus Shale and Bakkan Shale formations, has increased volumes of TENORM in states where that type of waste did not regularly occur. This has resulted in some illegal dumping of the material, especially in states like North Dakota.
