The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission has approved a revised rule aimed at providing additional information about low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) being imported into the state. Among a number of changes to the original proposal, waste disposal providers covered by the rule would now only be required to issue semiannual reports on their operations.
The commission voted on the rule at its Feb. 22 meeting, and the measure was posted in the March 23 edition of the Texas Register. Its effective date was Wednesday.
The commission in November 2017 published the planned rule that would cover LLRW being imported into the state to any site other than the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact facility, which is owned by the state and operated by Waste Control Specialists at its disposal complex in Andrews County. Texas and Vermont are the only members of the compact, but other states can send their waste to the WCS compact facility.
At the time, the state body proposed requiring any entity in Texas that accepts non-compact-facility waste to submit quarterly reports covering each shipment in the preceding three months. The reports would provide data including the identity of the waste generator, the name of the state in which the material originated, its activity in curies, its volume or weight, and the date and location of disposal.
During a Nov. 3-Dec. 8 comment period, Waste Control Specialists said it did not oppose the rule, while fellow radioactive waste services provider EnergySolutions backed the proposal and Nuclear Sources & Services said it did not apply to the company’s operations.
Based on the comments, the commission made a number of revisions to the measure. Along with the reduced number of mandatory reports, the updated rule would, among a list of changes: specifically exclude waste covered by existing rules on imports to the compact facility from states other than Texas and Vermont; emphasize the commission wants to know the gross volume or weight of waste; allow entities to use their own reporting forms, following authorization by the commission; and give new importers 30 days from the start of operations to seal their own agreement on the reporting mandate.
Radioactively contaminated soil stored under tarps at three locations in Port Hope, Ontario, will beginning next month be moved into long-term storage, Canada’s Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) announced Wednesday.
The low-level radioactive waste is the byproduct of long-retired uranium and radium refining operations in the region near Lake Ontario. The Port Hope Area Initiative is charged with managing the $1.3 billion (CAN) cleanup of Port Hope and nearby Port Granby.
Contractor Amec Foster Wheeler will first transport soil from the Center Pier to the Long-Term Waste Management Facility, starting in late April, according to PHAI spokesman Bill Daly. That will be followed by material from the Pine Street North Extension and the municipal sewage treatment plant. The project is scheduled to be completed by spring or summer of this year, according to a PHAI press release. It will encompass about 33,000 cubic meters of soil.
The Port Hope Project, the larger of two cleanup missions overseen by PHAI, also plans this spring to begin remediation of contaminated residential properties in the municipality. As of early March, 800 contaminated properties had been identified. Residential remediation is expected to wrap up in 2023.
“The remediation of the first three residential properties to be cleaned-up will start this spring/summer,” Daly said by email. “Residential cleanups are grouped by neighborhoods to minimize impacts on the community.”
Once all waste has been cleared from the Center Pier, it would be employed as a staging site for cleanup of Port Hope Harbor. That project is anticipated to involve removal and transport of 120,000 cubic meters of contaminated sediment, and then restoration of the harbor and pier.
From The Wires
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