The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has given its blessing for Waste Control Specialists (WCS) to continue storing transuranic waste from the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory through late December 2020.
The commission on March 20 issued an amendment to Waste Control Specialists’ state radioactive materials license allowing it to retain the potentially combustible Los Alamos material at its Andrews County site through Dec. 23, 2020, commission spokesman Brian McGovern said by email.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted federal approval in December, saying it was satisfied the drums can continue to be safely stored at the Texas site through Dec. 23, 2020. The NRC approval followed publication of an environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact, which allowed the agency to update a 2014 order on continued possession of the special nuclear material. After receiving the approval from the NRC, WCS filed its paperwork with the state on Dec. 20, 2018.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is the state regulator for waste disposal at Waste Control Specialists. The TRU waste has been held at the waste disposal property since April 2014, sent from Los Alamos because DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico had been idled two months earlier by a radiation release linked to waste from the lab.
Waste Control Specialists learned from DOE in June 2014 that some of its Los Alamos waste was similar to the material that caused the WIPP accident.
State and federal officials have been studying what to do about the waste over the long term. While the Energy Department commissioned Idaho-based SUNSI JV to analyze options to enable the combustible waste to be shipped to WIPP, the results of the study have not been made public.
Of the original 582 LANL waste containers stored at WCS, 305 have been shipped to the WIPP for disposal since it reopened for shipments in April 2017, and 277 remain, according to TCEQ’S McGovern. Within the remaining drums, 113 consist of waste with combustibility or corrosion traits similar to the problem drums from Los Alamos.
The Energy Department is being “very aggressive to move this material out of the state of Texas as soon as it can,” Waste Control Specialists President and Chief Operating Officer David Carlson said by telephone Thursday.
In congressional testimony Tuesday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry seemed interested in a wider role in the weapons complex for Waste Control Specialists.
During a rapid back-and-forth with Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) on the rate of shipments to WIPP, Perry appeared to float the idea of using the commercial site as a stopover for certain transuranic waste.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant disposes of defense transuranic waste in an underground salt mine near Carlsbad, N.M., but it won’t resume pre-accident operation levels until a new ventilation system is completed by 2022.
“We’re going to do everything we can not only to speed that process up but to also find some alternative locations like across the border in New Mexico into Texas at Andrews [County],” Perry said. “That Andrews site would be an alternative as well,” he added.
There have been no discussions between DOE and Waste Control Specialists about using Andrews County as a temporary holding area for additional transuranic waste, Carlson said.
The company has applied for federal approval to use its Andrews County property for interim storage of spent nuclear fuel from commercial power reactors. Perry seemed to be commenting on the site’s potential growing role in waste storage, Carlson said, adding he did not believe the energy secretary was referring to TRU waste.
The Energy Department did not respond to a request to elaborate on Perry’s remarks.
Perry made his comments while testifying on DOE’s fiscal 2020 budget plan before the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee on Tuesday. That was followed by testimony Wednesday before the corresponding Senate Appropriations panel.
