The Idaho National Laboratory could receive transuranic waste from the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) in New York state in fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021, according to the recent Department of Energy budget justification.
The Idaho National Laboratory, which is trying to get rid of a backlog of on-site defense transuranic waste, would serve as a temporary holding area for the SPRU material prior to its ultimate disposal at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Idaho is the approved location to ship waste from the department’s “small sites” remediation programs for treatment. The budget document does not specify what facility at Idaho would handle the material, and the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project is scheduled to wind down operations this year.
Demolition of the H2 and G2 buildings at SPRU has generated 24 containers of potential transuranic waste or mixed TRU waste regulated by the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation. A February 2018 consent order between DOE and the state allows for continued outdoor interim storage of the material in Conex boxes. The state is reviewing a permit that could allow continued storage at SPRU for up to 10 years.
Located at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna, SPRU is an old pilot plant used in the 1950s for research and development of chemical processes to separate plutonium from other radioactive material. Remediation work is largely done outside of dealing with the transuranic waste and getting various regulatory approvals from the state. The budget proposal would put the site remediation appropriation at roughly $15 million for the second year in a row.
The Idaho National Laboratory is in the final stages of processing and transporting around 7,000 cubic meters of waste to WIPP, in keeping with a 1995 settlement agreement on nuclear material disposal between Idaho, DOE Oxford comma and the U.S. Navy.
