By John Pfeffer
Once again, the Town of Ashford and the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) in New York state are on the outside looking in as far the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is concerned. A recent DOE proposal for interpreting the definition of high-level waste might have cleared the way for relocation of West Valley’s high-level waste, but the Energy Department has now updated that plan to exclude the former nuclear fuel reprocessing facility and current cleanup site. Meanwhile, DOE refuses to ship transuranic waste that has been stored for decades at West Valley to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, the one disposal site in the nation where it belongs. The Town of Ashford and its residents deserve better.
While the Department of Energy continues to treat West Valley and the Town of Ashford differently from its other cleanup sites for cost reasons or because of statefederal disputes, transuranic waste containers on the site, some from the 1980s, are starting to become unstable – one recently broke apart and leaked. These containers were never meant for long-term storage in this location. One significant weather event could easily compromise other containers that are stored in nothing more than a metal building.
The Town of Ashford always rises to the occasion to be an active and supporting partner for the Energy Department. We have patiently waited for decisions to be made, and we regularly work well with local federal staff. The Energy Department is currently working on a complicated proposal for disposal of West Valley transuranic waste that requires actions by Congress, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the state of Texas – which ultimately would take the material. But DOE could open a disposal pathway today by simply recognizing that defense work done decades ago at West Valley makes its transuranic waste eligible for disposal at WIPP.
The Department of Energy says West Valley waste is “commercial” waste, which means the site’s transuranic waste can’t go to WIPP, which only takes defense waste. But 60% of West Valley waste came from the nuclear weapons complex, and most of the plutonium and all the uranium recovered here went back to the defense complex. This means the West Valley wastes should be defined as defense waste. In fact, the facility is on DOE’s list of “atomic weapons employers,” making many West Valley employees eligible for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program that compensates individuals for a broad range of illnesses received through working at DOE weapons complex facilities. The Department of Energy can’t have it both ways.
Last year, the Energy Department proposed to change the way it defines high-level reprocessing waste (HLW), basing it on radiological characteristics rather than origin. The department said this change could open up disposal pathways for sites around the nation, expediting environmental remediation of nuclear waste sites such as West Valley. The Town of Ashford’s supported DOE’s reinterpretation, at West Valley and across the weapons complex, because the department said it could expedite cleanup and waste removal from those sites.
Now DOE says the West Valley HLW won’t be part of this initiative because the department considers that material to be commercial waste. But that contradicts the entire purpose of the reinterpretation: managing the waste by its characteristics rather than its point of origin. Just by calling the HLW “commercial,” DOE is doing exactly what it said shouldn’t be done.
West Valley deserves the same cleanup priority as every other site where neighbors live next to nuclear waste. It is time for DOE to abandon its outdated position on West Valley waste being commercial waste, treat the high-level waste like the nation’s other HLW, and put the aging transuranic waste into the queue for disposal at WIPP.
We are also extremely concerned with the concept of “open-air” demolition of the main plant process building given the off-site contamination issues that have occurred at Hanford, Wash.
The Department of Energy continues to ask the community to do something it is not environmentally or economically suited for. The longer this continues, the higher the cost to the local community and the federal government. Continued delay and disagreement will continue to increase costs while the Town of Ashford deals with the ongoing stigma of a nuclear waste dump.
John Pfeffer is the deputy supervisor for the Town of Ashford, N.Y.
