The Washington state Department of Ecology has yet to receive a Department of Energy package on federal plans for a 2,000-gallon test of the Test Bed Initiative, where some low-activity tank waste from the Hanford Site would be grouted and shipped out-of-state for final disposal.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management informed the state agency in early July of its plans to do an assessment of the proposal under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The large information package from DOE is expected this summer, but a Washington Ecology spokesman said by email Monday that no filing has been made yet.
A pilot test was done in 2017 when three gallons of tank waste were treated at Hanford’s 222-S Lab and grouted at the Perma-Fix Environmental Services Northwest plant near Hanford before being shipped to Waste Control Specialists in Texas for disposal.
While DOE says Hanford remains on schedule to start converting low-activity waste into a glass form at the new Waste Treatment Plant by the end of 2023, officials have said the vitrification plant might only be able to handle half of such waste at the former plutonium production complex. There are 56 million gallons of radioactive waste in underground tanks at Hanford and most of it is low-activity.
The 2,000-gallon test requires a state research, design and development permit from Ecology and in June 2019, the DOE withdrew its application as the state and federal agencies prepared for wide-ranging “holistic” talks on tank waste and related cleanup issues at Hanford. The DOE has requested, and the House of Representatives as well as the Senate Appropriations Committee have now passed, an Energy & Water Development fiscal 2022 spending bill that would provide $7 million for the test bed initiative, referred to as low-level waste offsite disposal.
