TANK WASTE RETRIEVAL, PROCESSING, AND ON-SITE DISPOSAL AT THREE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY SITES
FINAL REPORT
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
Support for this study was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy under cooperative agreement number DE-FC01-04-EW07022. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
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COMMITTEE ON THE MANAGEMENT OF CERTAIN RADIOACTIVE WASTE STREAMS STORED IN TANKS AT THREE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY SITES
FRANK L. PARKER, Chair,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
HADI ABU-AKEEL,
AMTENG Corp., Vienna, Virginia
JOHN S. APPLEGATE,
Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington
HOWIE CHOSET,
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
PAUL C. CRAIG,*
University of California, Davis
ALLEN G. CROFF,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (retired), Tennessee
PATRICIA J. CULLIGAN,
Columbia University, New York City, New York
KEN CZERWINSKI,
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
RACHEL DETWILER,
Braun Intertec Corp, Minneapolis, Minnesota
EDWIN E. HERRICKS,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
TISSA ILLANGASEKARE,
Colorado School of Mines, Golden
MILTON LEVENSON, Bechtel International (retired),
Menlo Park, California
PAUL A. LOCKE,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
MICHAEL H. MOBLEY,
Mobley Radiation Consulting, Clarksville, Tennessee
DIANNE R. NIELSON,
Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Salt Lake City
KEN E. PHILIPOSE,
AECL/Chalk River Laboratories, Ontario, Canada
ALFRED P. SATTELBERGER,
Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois
ANNE E. SMITH,
CRA International, Washington, D.C.
LESLIE SMITH,
University of British Columbia, Canada
DONALD W. STEEPLES,
University of Kansas, Lawrence
Consultant
RODNEY C. EWING,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Staff
MICAH D. LOWENTHAL, Study Director
BARBARA PASTINA, Study Director
JOHN R. WILEY, Senior Program Officer
DARLA J. THOMPSON, Research Associate
LAURA D. LLANOS, Senior Program Assistant
MARILI ULLOA, Senior Program Assistant
NUCLEAR AND RADIATION STUDIES BOARD
RICHARD A. MESERVE, Chair,
Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C.
S. JAMES ADELSTEIN, Vice Chair,
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
HAROLD L. BECK,
Department of Energy Environmental Laboratory (retired), New York City, New York
JOEL S. BEDFORD,
Colorado State University, Fort Collins
ROBERT M. BERNERO,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (retired), Gaithersburg, Maryland
SUE B. CLARK,
Washington State University, Pullman
ALLEN G. CROFF,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (retired), Tennessee
DAVID E. DANIEL,
University of Texas at Dallas
SARAH C. DARBY,
Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU), Oxford, United Kingdom
RODNEY C. EWING,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
ROGER L. HAGENGRUBER,
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
DANIEL KREWSKI,
University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
KLAUS KÜHN,
Technische Universität Clausthal, Germany
SUSAN M. LANGHORST,
Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
NIKOLAY P. LAVEROV,
Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
MILTON LEVENSON,
Bechtel International (retired), Menlo Park, California
C. CLIFTON LING,
Memorial Hospital, New York City, New York
PAUL A. LOCKE,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
WARREN F. MILLER,
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
ANDREW M. SESSLER,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California
ATSUYUKI SUZUKI,
Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, Tokyo
JOHN C. VILLFORTH,
Food and Drug Law Institute (retired), Derwood, Maryland
Staff
KEVIN D. CROWLEY, Senior Board Director
EVAN DOUPLE, Scholar
RICK JOSTES, Senior Program Officer
MICAH D. LOWENTHAL, Senior Program Officer
BARBARA PASTINA, Senior Program Officer
JOHN R. WILEY, Senior Program Officer
NAOKO ISHIBE, Program Officer
CATHERINE S. BERKLEY, Financial and Administrative Officer
TONI GREENLEAF, Financial and Administrative Associate
DARLA J. THOMPSON, Research Associate
COURTNEY GIBBS, Senior Program Assistant
LAURA D. LLANOS, Senior Program Assistant
MARILI ULLOA, Senior Program Assistant
JAMES YATES, JR., Office Assistant
List of Report Reviewers
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The content of the review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
David Adelman, University of Arizona
Robert Bernero, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (retired)
Barry Burks, TPG Applied Technology
Sue Clark, Washington State University
Bill Echo, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (retired)
Roy E. Gephart, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Linn Hobbs, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Terence C. Holland, Consultant
David C. Kocher, SENES Oak Ridge, Inc.
Leonard Konikow, U.S. Geological Survey
Edward Lahoda, Westinghouse Science and Technology Center
Jane C. S. Long, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Mal McKibben, Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness
Richard A. Meserve, Carnegie Institution
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the report’s conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Hyla Napadensky, Napadensky Energetics Inc. (retired), and John Ahearne, Sigma Xi. Appointed by the National Research Council, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
Preface
During World War II and the Cold War that followed, the United States built large production capabilities for and stockpiles of nuclear weapons. This involved the chemical processing (reprocessing) of the spent nuclear fuel from plutonium production reactors. The highly radioactive wastes from reprocessing were put in underground tanks as neutralized liquor at the Hanford and Savannah River Sites in Washington State and South Carolina, respectively. A separate, but similar, program at the Idaho National Laboratory reprocessed spent nuclear fuel from naval nuclear reactors and experimental and test reactors; most of the waste from these reprocessing activities was converted to a granular form and stored in above-ground bins (tanks inside silos), although some highly acidic waste was left in the facility’s underground stainless steel storage tanks.
At the Hanford and Savannah River Sites, the chemical processes used for extracting key radionuclides changed over time and were applied to different nuclear fuels and targets. As a result, the wastes produced by reprocessing were somewhat different at different times. The liquid wastes were subjected to chemical treatments to inhibit corrosion of the carbon steel tanks and to precipitate key radionuclides. Wastes from different chemical processes or from processing different materials were mixed together; some wastes were reprocessed multiple times for additional separations; and materials such as zeolites and diatomaceous earth were discarded in some tanks. The tanks themselves vary in design, even at one site and within one tank farm. Some waste was intentionally discharged into the ground at Hanford, and there were leaks in the tank farms at each site. Most of the tank wastes now are highly heterogeneous and the conditions in which they are stored vary.
Studies of means to solidify the highly radioactive tank wastes began roughly 50 years ago. Progress has been slow. This is an indication of the complexity and difficulty of the problem. Now the United States is entering a new phase, under very different social, political, and legal conditions than were in place at the time the wastes were created. The Department of Energy (DOE), which is responsible for managing the wastes and their consequent risks, has been operating one facility for immobilizing high-level radioactive waste through vitrification at the Savannah River Site and has finished operation of another at the West Valley Demonstration Project. DOE is building a processing and immobilization facility at Hanford and has recently selected a technology for immobilizing the liquid waste in tanks in Idaho. DOE has cleaned out about 12 of the 246 tanks at the sites, and 2 of the cleaned tanks have been closed by filling them with grout.
Ideally, all wastes would be removed from the tanks. However, it is widely recognized that it is prohibitive in terms of worker risk and economic cost to exhume the tanks or remove all of the wastes from all of the tanks. The debate now is over how much removal of the wastes from the tanks is enough, how much removal of radionuclides from the retrieved waste is enough, and whether grout is an adequate form of residual waste immobilization onsite. In 2004, Congress passed legislation (the Ronald Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005) to facilitate progress toward tank waste disposal in South Carolina and Idaho, providing a framework for determining what wastes may remain on-site. In the same act, Congress asked the National Academies to evaluate DOE’s plans for some of these wastes at the Savannah River Site, the Hanford Site, and the Idaho National Laboratory.
A committee of 21 volunteers with diverse expertise was charged to fulfill the congressional request, issuing an interim report in 6 months and the final report in one year (see Appendix A for biographical sketches of the committee members). This proved to be a difficult challenge. Due to the complexity of DOE’s tasks, there are many important details in several hundred substantial documents, and some details were not constant throughout the course of the study. Decisions and reviews are continuing even as this report is being published. The committee carried out its task as DOE was working with South Carolina, Idaho, and the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the first waste determinations to be made under the new legislation. DOE and others worked hard to get the committee the information it needed. However, an unfortunate feature of the timing is that some key documents were issued late in the course of the study (after the beginning of September 2005 and through the committee’s review process).
Because of the long time frames in which some of the waste remains hazardous, the committee recognized that the future is uncertain and circumstances, capabilities, and knowledge may continue to change as dramatically in the future as they have in the past. We also recognize that given such limited experience with some of the chemical processes to treat wastes, some being used in these applications for the first time, there is a high degree of technical uncertainty added to the considerable uncertainties about costs and what the society values. We have tried to avoid scientific and engineering hubris in viewing our capabilities to predict what will occur in the future and how man-made objects will perform over these long time frames.
We have refrained from looking holistically at the problem of environmental releases of radioactive and hazardous chemical materials from the sites over time because it was not in our charter. However, we would be remiss if we did not call attention to the other radioactive and hazardous chemicals at the sites that also can pose risks to human health and the environment. As noted in the report, the trade-off between the cost and risk of retrieving and processing tank and bin wastes must take into consideration risks from other waste and contamination already committed to the site.
Time constraints, new developments, and the absence of some information even in the vast quantity of documentation provided necessarily limit the extent to which the committee could answer Congress’s questions. Some related issues, such as seismic concerns, could not be considered. Nevertheless, the report contains important messages that we hope Congress, DOE, and others will find informative and helpful. Some of these messages are reiterated and elaborated from the committee’s interim report. The final report does not reproduce the committee’s finding and recommendation concerning “Class C” concentration limits. The committee stands by them, as indicated in Appendix E, but has nothing further to add on that subject.
The committee thanks the people who provided input to this study, including the many presenters listed in the Appendix D, as well as members of the public who spoke at those meetings. We specifically acknowledge several individuals who helped to coordinate meetings and respond to special requests by the committee: Mark Gilbertson, Randy Kaltreider, and Ken Picha at DOE headquarters; Tom Caldwell, Bill Clark, Ginger Dickert, Peter Hill, Christine Langton, Bill Pearson, Sherri Ross, Terry Spears, and Steve Thomas at the Savannah River Site; Shelly Sherritt and David Wilson at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control; Anna Bradford, David Esh, and Scott Flanders at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Lorie Cahn, Keith Lockie, and Keith Quigley at the Idaho National Lab; Kathleen Trever at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality; Ryan Dodd, Bill Hewitt, Fred Mann, Roger Quintero, and Roy Schepens at the Hanford Site; Suzanne Dahl, Jane Hedges, and Michael Wilson at the Washington Department of Ecology; Russell Jim of the Yakama Indian Nation; and Ken Niles at State of Oregon Department of Energy.
Finally, the committee thanks the members of its staff— Laura Llanos, Micah Lowenthal, Barbara Pastina, Darla Thompson, Marili Ulloa, and John Wiley—all of whom worked long hours to support the committee throughout the study. In particular, we thank Micah and Barbara for their work in directing the study and Laura for ensuring that meetings went smoothly. We also want to acknowledge Kevin Crowley, director of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, for his assistance at several points. This study was a large and challenging task that the committee could not have completed without their support.
Frank L. Parker, Chair
Committee on the Management of
Certain Radioactive Waste Streams
Stored in Tanks at Three Department of
Energy Sites