Liquid waste operations at the Savannah River Site restarted this week following a 15-month layup that included multiple delays to resumption due to maintenance issues at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF).
The DWPF is responsible for converting millions of gallons of radioactive liquid waste at the Energy Department facility in South Carolina into a less harmful form suitable for interim on-site storage. The facility’s melter malfunctioned in February 2017, prompting liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation to halt all liquid-waste operations.
The melter is a 65-ton vessel that mixes the waste with inhibitor materials to form a glassy substance, a process known as vitrification. The site replaced the melter in December at a cost of $3 million. Since then, crews have worked to connect the melter to the liquid waste system and conduct testing to make sure it was ready for operations.
The Energy Department initially expected operations to resume in March, but then said it would take until April to ensure it followed protocols outlined in the documented safety analysis, the technical basis for ensuring safe and compliant operations. The DWPF began chemical operations on May 8, including pretreatment of sludge to prepare for the waste conversion process. But a full restart was pushed back again by a malfunctioning DWPF diesel generator, which ensures power in the event of an electricity outage or interruption.
Finally, Savannah River reported last week it would need a few more days for startup to fix a seal that allows treated waste to properly pour from the melter into storage canisters.
“It’s been a technically challenging time, and our employees have delivered excellent operational results, but most importantly completed the work in a safe and disciplined manner,” Savannah River Remediation President and Project Manager Tom Foster said in a press release Wednesday.
There were no major impacts to the site’s liquid waste disposal schedule or cost, DOE has said, since outages are included in the SRS Liquid Waste System plan. All told, the SRS liquid waste mission includes more than 35 million gallons of radioactive waste, a byproduct of Cold War weapons production. The mission is expected to last until 2039 and carries a life-cycle cost of $33 billion to $57 billion.
