Environment DEC
From the June 2008 issue
Report Finds Scant Progress 21 Years After West Valley Cleanup Pact
Stainless steel canisters containing vitrified glass logs of high level waste, stored in a "hot cell" room in the Main Process Building
It was May of 1987 when the U.S. Department of Energy signed an agreement to begin the process of cleaning up radioactive waste at the Western New York Nuclear Service Center known as "West Valley" in Cattaraugus and Erie counties. Twenty-one years later, the cleanup has yet to reach the first regulatory milepost of completing a final environmental impact statement, according to a new report issued recently by DEC.
Only One Mandate Met So Far
The West Valley report finds there is a pressing need to accelerate the long-running cleanup effort of the facility, which has been closed since 1975. To date, only one major aspect of the remediation mandate, the "vitrification" or solidification of liquid high-level radioactive waste into glass-like logs, has been met. But even this is a qualified success. Because no off-site disposal option has been found for the logs, they remain on site, preventing final decontamination of the main process building.
Photograph showing the approximate footprint of the plume in the summer of 2007. (Photo courtesy West Valley Demonstration Project and NYSERDA)
The report notes that a number of contamination issues remain outstanding and makes several recommendations, such as hastening the design and planning aspects of the cleanup so work can begin as soon as possible. Other recommendations include decontaminating the "main process" building on site; shipping as much waste as allowable off site; emptying and drying underground waste tanks, and containing an underground plume of radioactive material using new technology. The underground plume now stretches approximately one-third of a mile and continues to slowly expand.
Funding Woefully Inadequate
The report points out that the current federal funding provision necessary to accomplish the cleanup is woefully inadequate, covering just over half the price tag for making real improvements at the site. With a minimum commitment of $95 million per year for a decade, significant cleanup progress would be achievable, the report found. That is small compared to the federal budget's $2 billion allocation for the nuclear waste site in Hannaford, Washington, and $1.4 billion for the Savannah River, South Carolina site. Yet the 2008 federal budget allocates just $57.6 million for West Valley.
West Valley is a 3,345-acre site located about 30 miles south of Buffalo and 20 miles upstream from the Cattaraugus Reservation of the Seneca Nation. The site was formerly run by a private company called Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. An estimated 9,200 people live within six miles of the site in what is a largely agricultural area.
Approximately 200 acres of the site contain the remains of nuclear fuel reprocessing operations, which began in the 1960s. The 1987 agreement was signed by the federal government, the Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes and the Radioactive Waste Campaign. Among other requirements, the agreement mandated completion of a final environmental impact statement to help steer the cleanup-a step which has yet to be reached.
