A local nuclear watchdog said it is happy Idaho is forcing the U.S. Department of Energy to “clean up the radioactive mess” at the Idaho National Laboratory, but does not want more spent nuclear fuel coming into the state.
“We strongly oppose additional nuclear waste coming into Idaho,” Snake River Alliance Executive Director Holly Harris said in a Thursday statement after the state and DOE struck a deal for resumption of some spent nuclear fuel shipments for research at the lab.
“We need to protect Idaho’s lifeblood – the Snake River Plain and the Snake River Aquifer from more nuclear waste,” Harris said. The Boise organization did not say whether it would take any action against the agreement.
The deal supplements a 1995 settlement agreement between DOE, Idaho, and the Navy on removing radioactive waste from INL. It allows a one-time waiver for shipment of 25 spent fuel rods from the Byron nuclear power plant in Illinois to the Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
Before the shipment can go forward, cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho must start operation of the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), among other conditions. The facility was supposed to start treating 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing liquid radioactive waste in 2012, but has yet to function as intended. Energy Department officials are encouraged by recent tests and say the IWTU should undergo a final trial run in early 2020.
The deal also stipulates that transuranic waste from Idaho will continue to receive top priority for disposal at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. In addition to startup of the IWTU, the 1995 settlement agreement said 65,000 cubic meters of waste from the lab would be sent to WIPP by the end of 2018. The deadline was missed largely due to a nearly three-year outage that followed two February 2014 accidents at the underground salt mine.
While the Snake River Alliance is wary of any new radioactive waste entering Idaho, the state’s congressional delegation expressed support for the deal. “I’m thrilled by today’s news and want to congratulate Governor Little, Attorney General Wasden, and the Department of Energy for successfully negotiating an update to the 1995 Idaho Settlement Agreement,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said Thursday on Twitter.
Idaho Republican Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo expressed similar sentiments. Thanks to the agreement, which was years in the making, “the Idaho National Lab will be able to conduct continued nuclear research critical to their mission while strengthening its position as a world leader on nuclear energy,” the senators said in a joint statement.
