The new method used by the U.S. Energy Department to calculate waste-disposal volumes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., is significantly increasing the amount of radioactive material that can be interred, an advocacy group says.
Last December, the New Mexico Environment Department approved a modification to DOE’s hazardous waste permit for the underground facility for transuranic waste disposal, allowing it to stop calculating volume under the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act based upon the outermost container. That is somewhat akin to measuring FedEx packages on the size of the gift inside rather than the outer package.
As of Sept. 21, 2019, just over 97,000 cubic meters of waste had been emplaced at WIPP since operations began in 1999, if calculated based on the outer containers, according to Don Hancock, administrator for the Albuquerque-based Southwest Research and Information Center. When measuring the inner containers, the volume total drops by roughly 29% to less than 69,000 cubic meters, according to comments Hancock filed Sept. 30 on the Energy Department’s draft five-year strategic plan for WIPP.
That reduction tracks pretty closely with June 2018 statements by then-DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader, since promoted to principal deputy assistant secretary in the department’s Office of Environmental Management.
Shrader told a National Academy of Sciences panel that by not counting the empty space between the drums inside the larger container, WIPP would reduce its total volume figure by about 30%. The Energy Department official also said when all the waste potentially bound for WIPP could amount to roughly 191,000 cubic meters of material, which exceeds the 175,500 cubic meters allowed by the Land Withdrawal Act.
In his formal comments, Hancock said his figures are drawn from sources including the draft strategic plan, WIPP’s public database, the Land Withdrawal Act, and the New Mexico Environment Department permit.
The Southwest Research and Information Center, along with another advocacy group, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, challenged the new accounting method before the New Mexico Court of Appeals in January. After the parties’ unsuccessful attempt at mediation, the lawsuit is now expected to head to trial, although the court has not issued a briefing schedule.
The amount of waste received at WIPP over two decades, as of Sept. 21, is the result of 12,589 shipments from other Energy Department nuclear sites, according to public data. “Thus, by outer container volume shipments average 7.71 cubic meters and by inner container volume, shipments average 5.46 cubic meters,” Hancock said.
The plan from DOE lays out WIPP goals through 2024, particularly upgrading infrastructure such as construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System and accompanying utility shaft. The Energy Department has not said when exactly it plans to publish the final version of the plan.
The final DOE strategic plan should give waste figures based both upon the outer container and inner container calculations, Hancock wrote. This would give a fuller picture of disposal progress, especially since the draft plan dwells instead on the number of shipments headed to WIPP, he added.
The draft strategic plan estimates WIPP could receive 2,436 shipments from fiscal 2020 through 2024. Assuming these shipments equal about 7.71 cubic meters of waste, the shipments will bring roughly 18,780 cubic meters over the five-year period, Hancock said.
The Energy Department plan also forecasts 616 shipments annually from 2025 through 2050, SRIC said. Assuming that occurs, WIPP could end up taking more than 239,000 cubic meters of waste, calculated via the outer container, or almost 27% more than the 175,500 cubic meters allowed under the Land Withdrawal Act, according to the advocacy group.
The Southwest Research and Information Center also contends DOE and WIPP operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership have failed to use all available space in disposal Panels 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Panel 1 was closed in 2003 after using only 58% of the available space, according to SRIC.
Rock falls and other underground conditions, such as contamination resulting from the February 2014 underground radiation release that closed the facility for three years, has limited space available for waste emplacement in some areas of the underground, WIPP has said.
Waste disposal is now taking place in Panel 7 and Nuclear Waste Partnership is mining salt, to create space for waste disposal, in Panel 8. The Energy Department has indicated there is a significant amount of available underground space that could be added to the WIPP hazardous waste permit provided the state approves such an expansion.
The agency hopes to operate WIPP until 2050, which is double the original 25-year life expectancy when the facility opened two decades ago, SRIC said in its comments.
“Another likely cause of the extended lifetime is DOE’s desire to expand the amounts and types of waste beyond legacy defense TRU waste,” including 34 metric tons of downblended surplus plutonium that was originally to be converted into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants at the now-canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina, Hancock wrote.
