ECA Submits Comments to DOE Regarding Interpretation of High-Level Waste
ECA Supports the Common-Sense Interpretation
ECA Staff | 1/9/2019
Today, ECA responded to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) request for comments on its interpretation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). ECA strongly supports a science-based search for alternatives
to ensure that cleanup of DOE communities can be advanced in the safest, most-efficient and expeditious way. ECA’s comments identify several advantages of basing disposal decisions on actual radiological characteristics rather than the origin of the waste, including reduced risks to current host communities by moving more waste out of sites quicker and saving taxpayers billions of dollars. Read the full comments here.
ECA is recommending that as part of evaluating its proposed interpretation DOE must conduct a full examination of the costs, timeline, impacts on existing agreements and other consequences to sender and receiver sites. Additionally, ECA’s recommendations call for transparency and engagement throughout the process to ensure a successful implementation.
By changing the interpretation to allow disposal decisions to be made based on waste composition and receiver site suitability, ECA expects DOE could:
- Reduce years of DOE operations and risks to current host communities;
- Accelerate Hanford, Idaho, West Valley and Savannah River tank retrievals and closures – which decreases risk (moving more waste out of the four sites quicker – thereby decreasing risk to the people that live in the communities);
- Decrease the number, size and duration of storage facilities pending availability of a permanent deep geologic HLW repository; and
- Save taxpayers an estimated $40 billion or more on DOE’s Office of Environmental Management program’s remaining lifecycle costs.
Finally, ECA is asking DOE to analyze the impact of the new interpretation and communicate it to each site, host community, state, Tribe and the public. Currently every site has questions regarding the change in interpretation. DOE still needs to provide the data and the policy direction. Failure to release the information will likely lead to mistrust, regulator lawsuits and eventually, an inability to
implement the change in policy successfully.
All comments are due by today, January 9. ECA will continue to engage on all efforts to evaluate safe, risk-based, cost-effective alternatives for moving waste out of our communities and will monitor the process as DOE finalizes its interpretation. Please contact Kara Colton, ECA’s Director of Nuclear Energy
Policy, with any questions.
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Learn more about DOE's cleanup sites with ECA's new DOE Site Profiles
ECA's new site profiles detail DOE's 13 active Environmental Management cleanup sites and national laboratories, highlighting their history, missions, and priorities. The profiles are a key source for media, DOE stakeholders, and other parties who may be interested in learning more about DOE site activities, contractors, advisory boards, and their surrounding local
governments.
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