Congressman John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) legislation aimed at advancing development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository also sets a deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency to prepare a final remedy for cleanup of radioactive material at the West Lake Landfill in Missouri.
“Not later than one year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency shall submit to Congress a report containing the final remedy to be implemented at the West Lake Landfill and the expected timeline for implementation of such final remedy,” according to language tucked at the bottom of the version of H.R. 3053 reported to the House of Representatives on Oct. 19.
That provision was not in the version of the legislation introduced in June with a host of provisions intended to strengthen the federal government’s ability to finally build a geologic repository for defense and commercial nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain. Shimkus worked with Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), to add the language, a Shimkus spokesman said.
Clay’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the measure.
House leadership last week posted the legislation to its Union Calendar, setting it up for a possible floor vote. However, a vote had not been scheduled as of Friday.
The West Lake Landfill contains waste from the former uranium production facility at Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis. It is encompassed within a federal Superfund site, alongside the adjacent Bridgeton Landfill, where an underground fire has been smoldering since 2010.
The EPA had at one point anticipated submitting by the end of 2016 its final cleanup remedy for soil that containers radiologically impacted material (RIM) in one section of the landfill, but that did not occur and a new schedule has not been released. The agency is evaluating two technical documents – a draft final feasibility study and draft remedial investigation addendum – that would precede a remedy plan.
The 484-page final feasibility draft, prepared by engineering consultants and submitted in January, evaluates a number of remediation options: a cover and contain method previously approved in a 2008 EPA record of decision but never implemented; taking no action; complete extraction of all radiologically contaminated material, with off-site disposal; and two partial removal alternatives.
Apart from the “no action” option, the other measures would meet the EPA’s baseline for protection of human health and the environment, remain in line with “applicable or relevant and appropriate requirements of other environmental regulations,” have been shown to be effective at other solid-waste and Superfund facilities, and are implementable, the feasibility report found.
The disposal method authorized in the record of 2008 decision, using a “multi-layered engineered landfill cover system” for containment of radiologically impacted materials, is forecast to take 2.7 years and cost $67 million for capital construction. That makes it by far the least expensive option.
The two partial excavation options – one involving extraction of material with combined radium or combined thorium activities at levels higher than 52.9 picocuries per gram (pCi/g) down to 16 feet of the site’s 2005 topographic surface; the other extraction of material with combined radium or combined thorium higher than 1,000 pCi/g, no matter the depth — would respectively require 5.9 years and $313 million for construction and nine years and $361 million.
Complete radiological contamination removal with off-site disposal would take 13.4 years and $616 million for capital construction, the report says.
For each method, annual maintenance and monitoring expenses are forecast at $167,000 to $326,000.
The EPA earlier this month sent a 62-page letter of comments on the draft study to the engineering firm that prepared the document. The revised final feasibility study is due back to the agency by Dec. 8.
The Great Lakes
Separately, the final provision in the Shimkus bill on Yucca Mountain offers “the Sense of Congress that the Governments of the United States and Canada should not allow permanent or long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel or other radioactive waste near the Great Lakes.”
This was an amendment offered by Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) during the House Energy and Commerce Committee markup of the legislation in June, according to Shimkus’ spokesman.
While the bill offers no additional details, this is clearly another message from Congress against a Canadian nuclear utility’s plans for a geologic repository that would hold 200,000 cubic meters of low- and intermediate-level waste less than a mile from Lake Huron in Ontario.
Ontario Power Generation has consistently touted the efficacy of the bedrock at the site in preventing any escape of radioactive contaminants into the environment. But skeptics on both side of the border have worried about the proximity of the repository to the Great Lakes, a key waterway and source of drinking water for Canada and the United States. That has been particularly true of lawmakers from Michigan, which borders Lake Huron, who have filed legislation and sought assistance from the Obama and Trump administrations in opposition to the storage site – so far to little effect.
The Canadian government, meanwhile, is still evaluating Ontario Power Generation’s application for the repository.
