It could be well into 2020 before the U.S. Department of Energy can begin shipping spent fuel from the Byron nuclear power plant in Illinois to DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory.
Likewise, it will probably take years before all the lab transuranic waste covered by a 1995 settlement agreement between DOE, the state, and the Navy is shipped for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
That timeline is based on documents released last week following an agreement between the Energy Department and the state of Idaho to open the door to shipment of 25 spent fuel rods from the Byron facility to INL for nuclear energy research.
The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality said this week that lab cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho still has significant tasks remaining before it can start operating the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU). The just-issued agreement says one canister of waste must be safely processed at IWTU before spent fuel can be shipped. The unit, which didn’t work as planned after construction was finished in 2012, is designed to process 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing liquid radioactive waste into a more stable solid form.
Idaho DEQ hazardous waste chief Natalie Creed said Thursday by email that in addition to holding a successful trial run in early 2020, and undergoing an Energy Department readiness review, Fluor Idaho must modify the state-issued hazardous waste permit before operations can begin. The modification must reflect equipment and operational changes made to IWTU in recent years.
“Further, shortly after starting, the IWTU is required to complete performance testing to demonstrate it can safely operate,” Creed added. Energy Department officials have not publicly outlined a timeline for these tasks.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden on Nov. 7 announced the deal for the one-time waiver for shipping the Byron spent fuel. For years, Idaho has refused such shipments through its authority under the 1995 settlement. The document says Energy Department needed to start operating IWTU, and remove 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste from INL by the end of 2018, before Idaho was obliged to take any more shipments.
Along with the mandatory processing of one waste canister at IWTU, shipment of the spent fuel is authorized only if the Energy Department ensures that 55% of shipments received at WIPP come from INL, until all of the trust waste covered by the 1995 agreement is removed from the state. The 55% will be based on a 3-year rolling average.
The transuranic waste mostly came to INL decades ago from other sites in the weapons complex. Roughly half of the TRU waste has already been shipped out of Idaho. More progress would have been made toward if not for the three-year outage at WIPP following a February 2014 radiation leak at the underground salt mine, according to state and federal officials.
Given current shipping rates, DOE has indicated it may take up to 10 years for the TRU waste to be completely removed from Idaho, Creed said. The actual timeline will depend on variables such as completion of WIPP’s new underground ventilation system and INL meeting all waste acceptance criteria for the disposal site, she added.
Officials with the Energy Department did not respond to request for comment by press time.
More than 240 of the total 311 shipments received at WIPP in 2018 came from Idaho.
A local nuclear watchdog said it is happy Idaho is forcing DOE to “clean up the radioactive mess” at the lab, but does not want more spent nuclear fuel coming into the state.
“We strongly oppose additional nuclear waste coming into Idaho,” Snake River Alliance Executive Director Holly Harris said in a Nov. 7 statement.
“We need to protect Idaho’s lifeblood – the Snake River Plain and the Snake River Aquifer from more nuclear waste,” Harris said. The Boise organization did not say whether it would take any action against the agreement. Harris could not be reached for further comment.
While the Snake River Alliance is wary of any new radioactive waste entering Idaho, the state’s congressional delegation expressed support for the deal. “I’m thrilled by today’s news and want to congratulate Governor Little, Attorney General Wasden, and the Department of Energy for successfully negotiating an update to the 1995 Idaho Settlement Agreement,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said Nov. 7 on Twitter.
Idaho Republican Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo expressed similar sentiments. Thanks to the agreement, which was years in the making, “the Idaho National Lab will be able to conduct continued nuclear research critical to their mission while strengthening its position as a world leader on nuclear energy,” the senators said in a joint statement.
