Department of Energy managers at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina expect the Salt Waste Processing Facility to process 4 million gallons of waste this year, they told a DOE-chartered advisory group Monday.
The prediction was offered by Michael Budney, Savannah River Site manager for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, in response to questions by Charles Hilton, a member of the Savannah River Site (SRS) Citizens Advisory Board that met Monday.
On contract matters, Budney said SRS is in contact with DOE headquarters “on an almost daily basis” about long-term plans for management of the sprawling site that includes significant cleanup as well as some National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear-weapon work.
Solicitation for a contractor to succeed Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solution was indefinitely delayed in November. The DOE also continues to work on its “corrective action” regarding the security contract at Savannah River, Budney said, adding no details but noting that Centerra continues to provide the service under its existing contract.
As for the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), after processing less than 2.5 million gallons of salt waste during its first year of operation in 2021, it should hit four million gallons in calendar year 2022 with a “near-term” goal of six million gallons annually and subsequently nine million gallons per year, Budney said.
In late March, BWX Technologies-led Savannah River Mission Completion took over operation of the facility, deemed crucial to emptying SRS tanks within the next decade or so. The new contractor, which assumed operation of other liquid waste operations at the site in February, took over SWPF from Parsons, which built the plant and ran it for the first year.
SWPF separates salt waste from Savannah River’s liquid tank waste. The unit runs well, when it runs, Budney said, but there have been various outages during the early going. The plant separates highly radioactive waste from the less-radioactive salt solution. The former substance is sent to the SRS Defense Waste Processing Facility to be vitrified into glass form and the latter to the above-ground saltstone disposal units.
Finally, SRS advisory board member Gregg Murray was “very, very disappointed” DOE canceled a planned briefing on plans to accelerate removal of spent fuel from the L-Basin storage area without recovering highly enriched uranium.
“At the last minute this is being pulled,” Murray said. “What happened?”
“There are some higher levels beyond DOE discussions going on,” Budney said, referring to an interagency policy group. “I really don’t have any details on that.” But Budney said, in response to a related Murray question, the delay appears more of a bureaucratic one rather than a threat to the “de-inventory” program, Budney said.
