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Management of Certain Radioactive Waste Streams Stored in Tanks at Three Department of Energy Sites

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Congress asked the National Academies to evaluate the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) plans for retrieval and on-site disposal of certain types of radioactive wastes stored in almost 250 underground tanks at three sites: Hanford Site, Savannah River Site, and the Idaho National Laboratory. Among the committee’s findings and recommendations, the report notes that DOE should pursue a more risk-informed, consistent, participatory, and transparent process for making decisions about how much waste to retrieve from each tank or group of tanks, and how much of that waste to dispose at each of the three sites.

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Description

The objectives of this study are to review and evaluate the Department of Energy's plans to manage certain waste streams from tank waste at its Hanford, Idaho, and Savannah River sites that: (1) the Department does not plan for disposal in a geologic repository; (2) exceed the concentration limits for Class C low-level waste as set out in section 61.55 of title 10, Code of Federal Regulations; and (3) the Department plans to dispose of at the three sites mentioned above. The request for this study appears in Section 3146 of the Ronald W. Reagan Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005, which directed the Department of Energy to fund this study.The approximate start date for this project is January 14, 2005.Congress explicitly asked for two reports: one interim report, focusing on the Savannah River Site, due 6 months after the beginning of the study; and one final report addressing all of the sites, due 12 months after the beginning of the study.

Contributors

Committee

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Micah Lowenthal

Staff Officer

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Sponsors

Department of Energy

Staff

Kevin Crowley

Lead

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