The Department of Energy is making plans for the next phase of a demonstration project for commercial grouting and disposal of some of the low-activity radioactive waste held in underground storage tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
Planning is underway for Phase 2 of the test bed initiative, grouting 2,000 gallons of waste, which could be completed by the end of fiscal 2019, according to a recently released DOE fact sheet. Phase 1, completed in December 2017, involved 3 gallons of waste.
The 2,000 gallons of waste would be sent to Perma-Fix Northwest near Hanford in Richland for grouting. The treated waste would be shipped to the Waste Control Specialists disposal facility for low-level waste in Texas. Hanford does not have a landfill permitted by Washington state for disposal of grouted low-activity waste, but DOE said the treated material will meet acceptance criteria for the Texas site.
The DOE fact sheet lists several benefits for the test bed initiative, including significant cost advantages. As the Waste Treatment Plant being built at Hanford was never planned to be large enough to vitrify the 90 percent of Hanford’s 56 million gallons of tank waste expected to be low activity, another treatment option is expected to be needed. One option would be to expand the low-activity waste capacity of the Waste Treatment Plant, but commercial grouting could eliminate or sharply reduce capital costs.
Commercial grouting would demonstrate progress on treating tank waste, as the Waste Treatment Plant will not begin treating waste before 2021. Commercial grouting also would help free up space in Hanford’s 27 double-shell tanks.
The Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator, would have to issue permits and approvals for the project. Now it has questions on cost, schedule, transportation, and other issues, laid out in a June 20 letter to DOE from Ecology Director Maia Bellon. “Current core work at the Hanford Site is already being deferred and delayed due to a lack of funds,” she wrote. “We are concerned about Energy pursuing a new initiative that would divert even more funding away from existing priorities.”
