Passage of a law to reauthorize the U.S. Energy Department’s cleanup of the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state drew kudos Wednesday from participants at a local meeting.
The measure, which passed the U.S. Senate on Dec. 2 and was subsequently signed into law by President Donald Trump on Dec. 20, would reauthorize West Valley funding at $75 million per year through fiscal 2026, roughly equal to the enacted budgets for fiscal 2019 and 2020.
“It’s a good news story,” said DOE’s project director for West Valley, Bryan Bower.
The measure was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), whose district includes West Valley. The bill failed to make it through the 115th Congress, but fared better upon being refiled last year in the 116th.
A staff representative for Reed, Lee James, briefly summarized the bill’s impact on funding during the meeting of the West Valley Citizen Task Force.
The reauthorization also calls for a U.S. Government Accountability Office report on the types of wastes currently located at West Valley, along with the costs of treatment, storage, and potential disposal paths for the material. A GAO representative told the meeting by telephone that the law allows 18 months for the report to be generated, but that it could be out as soon as the end of 2020.
West Valley transuranic waste currently stored in 278 casks onsite is not currently classified as defense related and therefore is not eligible for shipment to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.
During the meeting, Ashford Town Supervisor John Pfeffer noted that West Valley is getting an unexpected $1 million increase in funding for safety and security at the cleanup site. Security funding for West Valley is rising from $3.1 million in fiscal 2019 to almost $4.2 million in the current fiscal 2020, according to a chart presented at the meeting.
It appears the funding is allotted from the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s $313 million safeguards and security line item, which overall increased from $304 million in fiscal 2019. In addition to cybersecurity improvements, Pfeffer said that extra money might be used to help fund an around-the-clock presence at West Valley by the local sheriff’s office.
Regarding cleanup progress, demolition and removal of the Main Plant Processing Building should start this fall, according to Scott Anderson, president and general manager of DOE contractor CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley.
“We kind of put a pause on open air demolition of the main plant” during 2018, Anderson said. He indicated this was due to concern over potential spread of radioactive contamination, such as the kind that temporarily froze demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant at DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state between December 2017 and September 2018.
The Energy Department is reviewing lesson learned from West Valley and other sites in order to minimize risks when the Main Plant demolition resumes, a DOE spokesperson said Thursday.
Deactivation of the Main Plant Processing Building is 98% complete, Anderson said, pointing to a slide presentation. To date, five of seven ancillary support structures at the main building have been torn down. Only two remain. Work on one of them, a utility room, is set to begin in February. Demolition of the other, a loading facility, has been pushed back until 2023 after demolition of the Main Plant Processing Building is done.
The CH2M-BWXT team holds a $571 million contract that began in August 2011 and will expire March 9, barring an extension. The Energy Department issued a request for information on a potential new contract in October 2018 that would address the next stage –dubbed Phase 1B – of building demolition and soil removal at the site. But the procurement has not yet produced a draft request for proposals.
West Valley is located on 200 acres within the state-owned, 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center. The property was home to a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant between 1966 and 1972. The Energy Department foots the bill for 90% of environmental remediation at the site, which includes demolition of old buildings and treatment of waste. The rest of the money comes from the state.
The task force, comprised of about a dozen members drawn from labor, government, education, business, public interest groups, and tribal governments, provides a local forum on budget and policy issues at West Valley.
