The Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility in South Carolina is still falling short of Department of Energy production goals but that’s partly due to downtime at another waste facility, an advisory board heard Monday.
The Salt Waste Processing Facility has processed 1.3 million gallons so far in 2024 and a total of 8.7 million since the plant started radioactive operations in October 2020, Mike Budney told the Savannah River Site’s Citizens Advisory Board Monday. Budney is the top fed with the DOE Office of Environmental Management at Savannah River.
“When running” the SWPF, which separates cesium, strontium and other highly-radioactive waste from the less radioactive salt solution, is averaging a rate at about 6 million gallons annually, Budney said.
DOE has struggled to meet its production goals for the SWPF and hopes to quicken the pace with deployment of an advanced new solvent by the end of fiscal 2026, with a long-term target of reaching 9 million gallons per year. Some new, longer filters with more tubes will soon be installed at SWPF, Budney told the panel.
But there are still “some emergent material conditions” to deal with at the Defense Waste Processing Facility, Budney said. “If the Defense Waste Processing Facility is not ready to run, then the Salt Waste Processing Facility cannot run,” Budney said.
Once the salt waste is treated at SWPF, it goes onto the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), where it is vitrified into a glass form. The holdup has been at the DWPF, which has been shut down for repairs, Budney said. He did not elaborate on the repairs.
DWPF entered its annual site steam outage on April 19, which includes replacing some failed pumps and valves, a DOE spokesperson said by email Monday evening. The facility is expected to return to operation this week but had not as of Thursday.
There was also diesel engine work on the Shielded Canister Transporter, which was also outfitted with new 2,500-pound tires. After high-level waste is vitrified at DWPF, the transporter moves the stainless-steel canisters of glass to storage buildings for glass waste. Additionally, a non-radioactive leak on the DWPF cooling tower was repaired, the DOE spokesperson said.
DOE remains on pace to finish cleaning up Savannah River’s roughly 30 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste by 2037, although the processing should be finished before then, Budney said.
DOE contractor Savannah River Mission Completion has finished the supersized Saltstone Disposal Units 8 and 9, Budney said. Work is underway on Saltstone Disposal Units 10-11 and 12, Budney told the panel.
