The Energy Department said Tuesday that it had awarded a $19.3 million task order to Waste Control Specialists for continued storage in West Texas of transuranic and Greater-Than-Class-C waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The Dallas-based waste storage specialist said the agreement includes research into ultimate disposal of the waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
The DOE task order features a two-year base period, a one-year option, and a 100-day option for any wind-down operations needed at the end of the contract period. Altogether, options could extend the contract period until January 2021.
Several hundred drums were sent to WCS’ storage complex from Los Alamos in 2014 after an underground radiation release earlier that year closed WIPP for nearly three years. The DOE storage facility near Carlsbad, N.M., reopened in April to shipments from other sites, and WCS has been sending containers that were stranded at its facility for years. However, 113 drums contain “inappropriately remediated nitrate salts” similar to the container from Los Alamos that blew open at WIPP, and they aren’t going anywhere just yet.
Waste Control Specialists announced Wednesday that the agreement with DOE’s Office of Environmental Management Field Office in Los Alamos, N.M., not only calls for continued storage of the problematic waste, but also for a feasibility study on potential transport and eventual disposal of the 113 containers.
The material that will continue to be stored at WCS is transuranic waste by DOE definition, but is considered GTCC low-level waste under Nuclear Regulatory Commission terminology, DOE said.
“These contracts provide for the continued safe storage of TRU waste as well as our support to DOE to assist in the determination of permanent solutions for the TRU waste,” WCS President and CEO Rod Baltzer said in a news release.
The related DOE orders replace an earlier agreement between WCS and contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, which manages the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
In its current form, the nitrate-salt waste cannot be moved out of Texas because it meets neither the U.S. Transportation Department’s shipping requirements, nor WIPP’s waste acceptance criteria. DOE is currently studying treatment options for those containers.
The recently-announced contract involves up to 230 shipping containers of waste from Los Alamos. Initially, the total amount in storage was much higher, reportedly 300 to 400, but many shipping containers have already been moved to WIPP, sources noted. Between August 2017 and August 2018, WIPP expects to receive 18 shipments from WCS.
Texas Has Cut Fees for Waste Shipped to Andrews County
Separately, Texas state fees will be reduced through mid-2019 for entities that ship radiological waste to the WCS disposal site in Andrews County.
The fee reductions, which went into effect this summer, were approved in May by the Texas Legislature in an effort to improve business prospects for the financially troubled WCS.
The fee reductions are allowed, to varying degrees, for both shippers inside and outside the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact. “In-compact customers will see gross revenue fees cut in half and reduced from a total of 10.00 percent to 5.00 percent. Out-of-compact customers will see gross revenue fees reduced from 31.25 percent to 16.25 percent,” Baltzer said in a prepared statement.
The fee reduction would apply to all low-level radioactive waste disposal that would normally have a fee associated with it, he added. The reduced fees will remain in place through Aug. 31, 2019.
“This should encourage our customers to dispose of low-level radioactive waste in our state-of-the-art facility in Andrews County and we are already seeing an uptick in scheduled disposal shipments,” Baltzer said. He did not offer any specifics on shipment numbers.
The company operates a 14,900-acre property that encompasses a number of facilities for storage of various waste types. It has endured a series of financial losses, and its proposed merger with Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions was blocked in June following a federal antitrust trial. WCS and EnergySolutions gave up on the merger rather than appealing the judge’s ruling.
Meanwhile, WCS parent Valhi Inc. is rumored to be in serious discussions with a potential new buyer. Company officials said last week they have nothing to say on a potential buyer at this time.
