Based on conversations with the U.S. Department of Energy, the state of Idaho expects the long-awaited Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) will start operating in late 2020 at the Idaho National Laboratory.
However, the state for now will continue to assess financial penalties over DOE’s failure to meet the deadline for beginning operations at the plant, Idaho officials said recently.
With startup in sight for the facility to begin treating 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing liquid radioactive waste, Idaho Gov. Brad Little and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden agreed Nov. 7 to a plan for lifting the state’s ban on shipments of spent nuclear fuel for research at the Idaho National Laboratory. The state has not been allowed the federal agency to send used fuel for research at INL since 2013, Marissa Morrison Hyer, a spokeswoman for Little, noted by email Nov. 20.
The Nov. 7 agreement provides that once the IWTU is operating, the state will clear the way for the Energy Department to commence shipping 25 spent fuel rods to the lab from the Byron nuclear power plant in Illinois.
Under a 1995 agreement on removal of radioactive waste from Idaho, the Energy Department agreed to start converting the sodium-bearing waste into a more-stable solid form for disposal by the end of 2012. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit was built by that year, but has yet to work as designed.
Since then, DOE has made modifications to the facility and carried out some encouraging trial runs with a simulant within the past year. The federal agency hopes to hold a final test run early in 2020. Lab cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho must undergo a federal readiness review and file an amended hazardous waste permit with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality before the IWTU can operate.
The state has assessed fines daily since 2016 for its failure to start up the waste treatment facility. The penalties are currently assessed at the rate of $6,000 per day.
Idaho plans to continue assessing fines against DOE until it completes treatment of all of the sodium-bearing waste, Brian English, hazardous waste permits supervisor for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, said in Nov. 23 email. State penalties hit $7.14 million on Nov. 30. The Energy Department to date has satisfied more than $5.6 million through a combination of cash payments and performance of supplemental environmental projects for the state, he added.
After already being delayed several times, publication of a draft record of decision (ROD) for a proposed new landfill at the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee could slip into 2020.
The document is supposed to be issued Dec. 19, but DOE managers have informed the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation of plans to push publication back until Jan. 31, state agency spokeswoman Kim Schofinski said in a Nov. 26 email.
While there have been “phone conversations” about such a delay, no official decision has been made, an Energy Department spokesperson said by telephone Nov. 27.
The federal and state spokespeople could not immediately be reached on Friday.
In September 2018, the Energy Department concluded that building another on-site landfill at Oak Ridge was its preferred alternative. The final ROD would lay out the plan for the landfill.
Release of the draft ROD has been delayed a number of times since May for the new landfill for low-level radioactive and mixed waste generated at Oak Ridge.
Officially dubbed the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, the landfill would replace the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility, which is expected to reach disposal capacity in the 2020s. Like the current landfill, it would have a capacity of 2.2-million-cubic yards and be located in the Bear Creek Valley on the Oak Ridge Site.
The current landfill holds material from demolition of buildings Oak Ridge’s East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), where uranium was enriched for decades for the U.S. nuclear weapons program. The ETTP work is winding down, and the new landfill would primarily take waste from tearing down facilities at the Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Release of the document is complicated by disagreement between DOE, the state, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Oak Ridge is a Superfund site and is regulated by the EPA under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
A key issue is trying to reach a deal on regulating landfill wastewater effluents containing radionuclides. The parties want to reach agreement prior to issuance of the draft ROD. Schofinski said no new documents have been filed on the issue recently.
The manager of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management at Oak Ridge contends the EPA’s Region 4 in Atlanta wants to impose tougher standards for management of runoff from nuclear sites than is the norm nuclear facilities elsewhere in the United States.
AECOM disclosed Nov. 29 that Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Carla Christofferson was resigning her post effective immediately.
The Los Angeles-based infrastructure multinational said its leadership and Christofferson “mutually agreed” she would resign her management position, but would remain a “non-executive” employee of AECOM through Dec. 16, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. No further explanation was given for her exit.
The departure date apparently enables Christofferson to reap certain AECOM financial awards set to mature on Dec. 15. Under her separation agreement, the departing chief legal officer will get a severance payment equal to her annual base salary, medical insurance premium payments for up a year, and more than 41,000 shares of the company’s common stock. The separation agreement also includes a confidentiality provision and a “mutual non-disparagement covenant,” according to the SEC filing.
Christofferson, whose responsibility included overseeing a legal staff of more than 200, joined AECOM in 2015. Previously, she was managing partner at the O’Melveny & Myers law firm in Los Angeles from 2008 to 2014. Christofferson was at the firm for about 22 years, representing industries such as electric power, oil, and natural gas.
According to her AECOM profile, Christofferson was co-owner of the Los Angeles Sparks Women’s National Basketball Association team from 2006 through 2014.
AECOM also announced last month that Chairman and CEO Michael Burke plans to retire by the time the company holds its annual shareholder meeting in March.
In October, AECOM announced it had reached a $2.4 billion deal to sell its Management Services business, which handles its contracts with the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, to a joint venture of two New York investment houses. That deal is expected to close in February.
AECOM is part of joint ventures worth billions of dollars at Energy Department facilities including the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the Hanford Site in Washington state.
