Waste Deal Approved
January 27, 2009
McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Bob Audette Brattleboro Reformer,Vt.
Come the day Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is
decommissioned, there will now be a place to bury its reactor vessel and other
radioactive parts and components.On Jan. 14, Waste Control Specialists announced their
application for a low-level radioactive waste site had received conditional approval
from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
The site, in Andrews County in western Texas, on the border of
New Mexico, will accept Class A, B and C waste.
"Because Vermont is entered into this compact with Texas, it
allows the state greater flexibility as far as disposal is concerned," said
Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Low-level waste includes items that have become contaminated with
radioactive material or have become radioactive through exposure to
neutron radiation, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Web site.
The radioactivity can range from just above background levels
found in nature to very highly radioactive in certain cases such as parts
from inside the reactor vessel in a nuclear power plant.
Items that fall into the low-level waste classification include
protective shoe covers and clothing, wiping rags, mops, filters,
reactor water treatment residues, equipment and tools, luminous dials, medical
tubes, swabs, injection needles, syringes, and laboratory animal
carcasses and tissues.
Presently, low-level waste produced at Yankee is stored on site
or shipped to a disposal site in Utah's West Desert.
Not just Vermont Yankee will be shipping radiological waste to
Texas. Colleges, universities and hospitals, which generate Class A waster,
will also have that option.
The Utah site is not authorized to take Class B and C waste.
"All low-level waste generators in Vermont will benefit from
this," said Uldis Vanags, the state's nuclear engineer.
While the exact cost of disposal is not yet known, said Vanags,
he expected it would be competitive with the costs of disposal at the
Utah site. Disposal is funded by the generators of the waste.
A portion of the disposal site has been reserved for the burial
of the plant's reactor vessel, said Vanags, who is the Vermont's acting
compact commissioner.
"It is very important that there is a place for the eventual
decommissioning of the plant. The waste will have a home."
States such as Vermont were sending waste to a disposal site in
Barnwell, S.C., which was recently closed to all states except South
Carolina, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Ninety-nine percent of the low-level waste produced at Yankee
is Class A, said Rob Williams, spokesman for the power plant in Vernon. That
waste is currently shipped to Utah.
The equivalent of about 16 55-gallon drums of Class B waste is
produced on a yearly basis at the plant, he said, which is either
stored onsite in a concrete vault northwest of the dry fuel storage site or
is temporarily stored elsewhere.
The equivalent of 50 55 gallon drums of Class B waste is now
being stored on site, said Williams.
Spent fuel will not be sent to Texas. Eventually, the federal
government hopes to open a waste repository in Nevada to take the
spent fuel, which is considered high-level radioactive waste.
"This process goes back a long time," said Chuck MacDonald,
spokesman for WCS, to the early 1990s.
The original compact consisted of Texas, Vermont and Maine, but
with the closure of Maine Yankee in Rowe in 1996, the Pine Tree State
pulled out.
The Maine Yankee reactor vessel was buried in Barnwell.
Conditional approval includes condemnation of some of the
property and the completion of groundwater and other studies, said Eddie Selig,
spokesman for Advocates for Responsible Disposal in Austin, Texas, which is
funded by companies and organizations that produce radioactive waste products.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality also has to
approve WCS' management plan for the site.
"We have turned the corner on this," said Selig, who added he's
not sure how long it will be before WCS can start disposing of the waste.
"Once the conditions are met it will take about a year to build
the facility."
Selig said the majority of the residents of Andrews County are in
support of the project, which will bring about 75 good-paying jobs
to the area.
"It has enjoyed positive community support for a very long time."
The site measures 14,385 acres.
Bob Audette can be reached at [email protected], or
802-254-2311,ext. 273.