DOEs New National Strategy for Waste Management

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DOEs New National Strategy for Waste
Management

• Christine Gelles
• Director, Commercial Disposition Options, EM-12
• Office of Environmental Management

Federal Facilities Task Force Meeting
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• A decade ago, environmental cleanup was a
  boutique industry. Today, its a cost of doing
  business.
• - Former Under Secretary of Energy
• Robert Card

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Getting to this point

• EMs Sweet 16
• Programmatic Waste Management Environmental
  Impact Statement -- a decade old
• 1st five years planning, scoping
• 2nd five years analysis, negotiation,
  coordination
• 3rd five years decisions, wide-spread
  implementation, reform
• Today refining strategy, significant results

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Along the way

• Budgets grewand peaked in FY 2005 (7.1B)
• Strategies matured
• Technical, acquisition, project planning
• Priorities identified
• Risk reduction, safety, acceleration
• Significant results achieved
• Team diversified
• Increased use of commercial services

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Growing pains?

• Curtailed corporate life-cycle waste projections
• Obstacles to disposition paths
• Legal challenges to waste management policy
• Technical issues
• Contract protests
• Ambitious goals
• Unsuccessful realignment proposals
• Programmatic vulnerabilities
• Key stakeholder concerns

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EM Project overview

• EM project is well defined with controlled scope,
  cost and schedule
• Complete cleanup by 2035, at a cost of 142B.
• EM budget reflects significant progress to close
  major sites by 2006.
• FY 2005 Comparable Appropriation -- 7.054B
• FY 2006 Congressional Budget Request -- 6.505B
• Scope includes remediation and processing of
  approximately
• 25 tons of plutonium
• 108 tons of plutonium residues
• 88 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste
• 2,500 tons of spent nuclear fuel
• 137,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste
• 1.3 million cubic meters of low-level waste
• 324 nuclear facilities, 3,300 industrial
  facilities, hundreds of radiological facilities

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Transportation logistics and waste disposition
are key to the success of the EM Project

• Ensuring disposition paths are identified for all
  EM waste and materials
• Providing and coordinating disposition resources
• Optimizing operations of DOEs waste management
  facilities
• Improving EMs transportation infrastructure and
  ensuring all shipments are completed safely and
  compliantly
• Responding to dynamic circumstances
• Addressing gridlock

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EMs transportation efforts are significant

• In FY 2004, we completed approximately 20,000
  shipments of radioactive waste and material
• Most were LLW (15,000) MLLW (1,500)
• Include both Highway (18,600) Rail (1,400)
• In FY 2005, potential for 40,000 shipments

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A complex network
Shipment lines do not portray actual
transportation routes. This map is not inclusive
of all past or planned shipments.
Hanford
From Naval Reactor sites located in several states
To Permafix
To Hanford
Pacific EcoSolutions
To Oak Ridge Treatment
To Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
Idaho National Lab
West Valley
Brookhaven
Yucca Mtn (proposed)
Stanford Linear Accelerator
Fermi
Argonne
Princeton
Envirocare
Columbus
Lawrence Livermore
Mound
Rocky Flats
Fernald
To Envirocare
Nevada Test Site
Portsmouth
Paducah
Los Alamos
Permafix
Waste Control Specialists
Oak Ridge
To Nevada Test Site
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
Savannah River
To Oak Ridge Treatment
To Nevada Test Site
Permafix
From Naval Reactor sites located in several states
To Yucca Mtn
Transuranic Waste Disposal Shipment
Low-Level Waste/Mixed Low-Level Waste Disposal
Shipment
Spent Nuclear Fuel/High-Level Waste Disposal
Shipment
Low-Level Waste/Mixed Low-Level Waste Treatment
Shipment
Transuranic Waste Processing/Storage Shipment
Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage, Treatment, or
Repackaging Shipment
DOE Onsite Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility
Commercial Radioactive Waste Treatment Facility
DOE Offsite Radioactive Waste Treatment Facility
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Major DOE Radioactive Waste Transfers (includes
commercial facilities)
Waste exports from DOE Generator Sites are shown
in the incoming shipment boxes for the treatment
and disposal facilities. This map is not
inclusive of all past or planned shipments.
Incoming Waste Shipment
EXHIBIT B
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DOEs Waste Disposal Facility Configuration
Hanford
West Valley
Knolls
Fermi
INL
Ames
RMI
ANL-W
Mound
Bettis
LEHR
ANL-E
LBNL
Fernald
Rocky Flats
BCL
Kansas City

NTS
Portsmouth
Brookhaven
LLNL
Paducah
LANL
SLAC
Princeton (PPPL)
Oak Ridge
ETEC
Sandia
Sandia
General Atomics
ITRI
Savannah River
Pantex Plant
WIPP
Legend
Regional Disposal Facility
LLW Operations Disposal Facility
MLLW Operations Disposal Facility
MLLW Operations Disposal Facility (currently
on-site waste only)
CERCLA Disposal Facility
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)
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Key lessons to date

• Circumstances will change flexibility is a must
• Seeking alternate strategies for wastes planned
  for disposal at Hanford pending resolution of
  litigation
• Alternate strategy for Fernald silo wastes,
  managed as 11e.(2) by-product material
• Re-evaluation of planned closure of the TSCA
  Incinerator at Oak Ridge
• Get back to basics
• Core project management clear scope and
  realistic schedule goals
• Incentivize performance
• Pursue economies of scale
• Seek and preserve alternatives

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The new strategy for waste management

• Document the complex-wide program in formal
  schedules
• Integrate sites baselines
• Identify interfaces
• Gap analysis
• Cost analysis
• Target problem waste streams (orphans)
• Resume corporate life-cycle waste data system
• Provide corporate treatment opportunities
• Complete broad spectrum
• Pursue new acquisition

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Integration is our organizational mandate
Deputy Asst. Secretary for Logistics and Waste
Disposition Enhancements Frank Marcinowski
Commercial Disposition Options Christine Gelles
Federal Disposition Options Cynthia Anderson
Transportation Dennis Ashworth
HLW, SNF, SNM, TRU
Most wastes/materials
GTCC, LLW, MLLW, 11e2

• Developing national strategies business cases
  for transportation and waste disposition
• Integrating sites parallel efforts to accelerate
  cleanup
• Enabling and improving on baseline plans

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Additional Detail
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Current DOE/EM Waste Management Policy

• LLW and MLLW
• If practical, disposal on the site at which it is
  generated
• If on site disposal not available, at another DOE
  disposal facility
• At commercial disposal facilities if compliant,
  cost effective, and in best interest of the
  Department
• TRU waste
• If defense, disposed at Waste Isolation Pilot
  Plant, New Mexico
• If non-defense, safe storage awaiting future
  disposition
• HLW and SNF
• Stabilization, if necessary, and safe storage
  until geologic disposal is available

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EMs Waste Management Assets

• Multiple onsite disposal cells (mostly CERCLA)
  for site-specific remediation wastes
• Two regional LLW disposal facilities Hanford
  and Nevada Test Site (NTS)
• Planned Two regional MLLW disposal facilities
• Hanford currently limited to onsite MLLW
• NTS has submitted application for RCRA Part B
  Permit
• National repository for defense TRU waste WIPP
  (Carlsbad, NM)
• TSCA Incinerator (Oak Ridge, TN)
• However, EM also disposes of large volumes of LLW
  and MLLW at commercial facilities

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Use of commercial capabilities allows
optimization of resources and supports
acceleration efforts

• Treatment and packaging
• Certification to disposal criteria
• Interim storage
• Disposal
• Transfer for future release and disposal
• Support for accelerated site closure

In many cases, the resolution of waste issue
requires cooperation among multiple vendors and
sites
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Transportation safety is critical.

• EM senior management monitors transportation
  activity and events closely
• EM Office of Transportation established and
  deployed to institutionalize transportation
  safety
• Transportation Risk Reduction
• Legislative Regulatory Compliance
• Site Support Logistics
• Emergency Preparedness Outreach
• In FY 2004, we completed approximately 23,000
  shipments of radioactive waste and material
• Shipment numbers significantly increased as site
  cleanup and closure continue
• Utilized both highway and rail shipments

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Over the last several years, weve made
tremendous progress in waste management

• Significantly increased volumes of waste disposed
• Worked off vast majority of stored legacy waste
• Resolved large quantities of orphan wastes at
  closure sites
• Took steps to fully implement DOEs complex-wide
  waste management policies and strategies

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Transportation safety is critical

• In FY04, EM had 23 reported off-site incidents.
• Most significant incident was the release of
  radioactive material onto road surfaces at Oak
  Ridge
• Other areas of concern -- load securement and
  shipping paper violations
• FY04 Incident Rate 23/2.0 11.5
  Incidents/10,000 Shipments
• In FY05 year-to-date, EM has had 9 reported
  incidents representing a 30 reduction from the
  same period in FY04.
• Transportation Incident Review -- Management
  review of corrective actions and sharing of
  lessons learned among sites

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There will be significant developments in 2005

• National strategy for LLW/MLLW disposition
• Workshop in May 2005
• Complex-wide treatment acquisition
• Broad Spectrum contract expires mid-2005
• Seeking commercial alternatives to TSCAI
• Initiation of NEPA for greater-than-class C waste
  disposition
• Re-evaluation of commercial waste disposal needs
  and the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act
• Maintaining delicate balance between Federal and
  private sectors

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EMs Top to Bottom Review

• Secretary of Energy concerned by EM programs
  lack of focus and the uncontrolled cost and
  schedule required to complete the cleanup mission
• Top to Bottom Review (Feb 2002) concluded
  significant opportunities existed to accelerate
  risk reduction and better focus resources on
  cleanup
• Top to Bottom Review became a mandate for
  significant changes within the program
• Strategic plans to accelerate risk reduction and
  cleanup (Site Accelerated Cleanup Plans)
• Project controls and validated baselines
• Aggressive contract reform
• Realignment of resources and refined mission
  focus
• Reorganization