Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
6/27/2014
The shipments of class B and C waste from the Zion decommissioning project to Waste Control Specialists are back on track after a slight delay. EnergySolutions had originally planned to ship the waste back in March using one of its type-B casks under an exemption from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but an interruption occurred that called into doubt EnergySolution’s ability to ship all the waste before the exemption expired at the end of the year. According to WCS, the shipments have already begun to arrive. “Energy Solutions has scheduled seven Zion shipments to WCS – four of which have been received to date,” WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald said. EnergySolutions did not return calls for comment this week.
The waste, though, appears to be a higher radioactivity level than previously thought, according to a ZionSolutions amendment request to its import application with the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission. The waste, characterized as class B and C, would not changes classes, but an amendment was needed to reflect the higher activity. “The data used for the initial estimates of activity used the most recent data at the time and were developed from some very early data provided from the neutron activation analysis,” ZionSolutions Waste Operations Manager Michael Wiskerchen said in the amendment request. “Due to some unique flux distributions during operation we have identified some areas of the internals that are more activated than initially estimated. This poses no impact on the waste classification, specifically no waste has jumped class. The only impact requires revisions to the two import applications the ZS has with the TCEQ currently.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted EnergySolutions a license amendment that enabled the company to use one of its type-B casks currently pulled from service so that it could ship the waste from the Zion site. EnergySolutions claimed that the material was causing a public dose risk while delaying the completion on the time-sensitive project. The NRC granted the request, allowing up to 50 shipments using the cask until the end of 2014. EnergySolutions amended its import petition with the Texas Compact Commission to send 50 activated metal shipments to WCS for disposal. WCS had been working under the assumption that the Zion waste would be shipping as soon as possible, but the delays in shipments means all of the waste cannot be transferred before the deadline, WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald previously said.
