The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is poised to give its blessing for Waste Control Specialists (WCS) to continue storing potentially problematic transuranic waste from the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory through late December 2020.
The chief clerk for TCEQ is expected this week to issue an amendment to Waste Control Specialists’ state radioactive materials license allowing it to retain possession of the potentially combustible 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. 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.
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 WCS waste disposal property since April 2014, two months after DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico was idled by a radiation release linked to waste from Los Alamos. 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.
