From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Nuclear Waste Cleanup

Description: Nuclear energy research and weapons development dating as
far back as World War II has left behind millions of gallons of
hazardous and radioactive waste. The Department of Energy has the
difficult task of cleaning this up, but it faces a number of challenges,
including balancing costs and risks. We find out more from GAO’s Nathan
Anderson, an expert on nuclear waste cleanup and a director in our
Natural Resources and environment team. 

Related GAO Work: GAO-22-104365, Nuclear Waste Disposal: Actions Needed
to Enable DOE Decision that Could Save Tens of Billions of Dollars

Released: December 2021

[Music:]

[Nathan Anderson:] DOE may be able to reduce certain risks, treat waste
sooner and save tens of billions of dollars by considering alternate
treatment disposal options for supplemental, low-activity waste. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for
news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability
Office—celebrating 100 years of fact-based, nonpartisan government
oversight.  I'm Holly Hobbs. Nuclear energy research and weapons
development —dating as far back as World War II— has left behind
millions of gallons of hazardous and radioactive waste. The Department
of Energy has the difficult task of cleaning this up, but it faces a
number of challenges, including balancing costs and risks. Today, we'll
discuss our recent reports on nuclear waste disposal with Nathan
Anderson, an expert on nuclear waste cleanup and a director in our
Natural Resources and Environment team. Thanks for joining us. 

[Nathan Anderson:] Thanks for having me, Holly. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So Nathan, what are the basics of getting rid of nuclear
waste?  

[Nathan Anderson:] Well, here are the basics. DOE has tank waste located
at three sites across the country. You've got Hanford in Washington
State, a Savannah River in South Carolina and Idaho National Lab. Now,
most of this waste can be separated into two types. There's a highly
radioactive portion known as high-level waste and a portion with low
levels of radioactivity known as low-activity waste or low-level waste.
And so the highly radioactive portion must be treated with a process
called vitrification, which is essentially mixing the waste with glass
for long term disposal.  But the less radioactive portion, DOE has a
couple of different options. At the Savannah River site, they've been
treating this less radioactive portion by mixing it with salt stone,
which is basically a grout or a cement like mixture. The Hanford site
plans to treat at least a portion of this low-activity waste by
vitrifying it or mixing with glass, as is done for the highly
radioactive stuff. But there's also a portion of the Hanford waste, like
around 20 million gallons or so, where a decision hasn't yet been made.
And we've reported in the past that treating Hanford’s low-activity
waste with grout will also meet required disposal standards. And it's
also likely to be tens of billions of dollars cheaper.

[Holly Hobbs:] So some of this waste has been around for 80 years. Why
is it taken so long to get rid of it? 

[Nathan Anderson:] Well, the short answer is that for much of this time,
we were in the Cold War. More attention was given to producing nuclear
weapons and winning the arms race. It wasn't until the late 1980s that
DOE in particular fully understood its environmental responsibilities,
and the legal landscape changed and clarified the fact that DOE did have
to comply with environmental laws.  It's also important to realize that
certain states such as Washington, South Carolina, Idaho and Tennessee
bore a tremendous cost as part of the Manhattan Project. This included
loss of life from radioactive contamination and long term environmental
contamination. So these states that bore this cost, they deserve a say
in their long-term fate.  And I'd like to add that in part because of
the secrecy of the nuclear weapons production, there was sometimes an
air of distrust between certain states and DOE. And this distrust
sometimes led states to be skeptical of DOE cleanup proposals. And
subsequent contract and project management problems also exacerbated the
skepticism, making regulators reluctant to approve the fastest or the
cheapest proposals.

[Holly Hobbs:] Got it! So how much will it cost to clean up nuclear
waste?

[Nathan Anderson:] The answer is it's a lot, and it's growing. DOE’s
environmental liability—that's the estimated future costs of addressing
environmental responsibilities—it's now over half a trillion dollars.
There are additional costs that will be added as DOE makes decisions on
future cleanup work. It will also grow because DOE has underestimated
the cost to complete some of its largest projects, such as the waste
treatment and immobilization plan at the Hanford site.  Now, in our
recent work, we found that DOE's environmental liability has grown at a
rate that has outpaced its spending on cleanup activities. And so we
have fiscally unsustainable pressures, not unlike those that are facing
our government writ large.

[Holly Hobbs:] This seems like it would be a NIMBY issue, a not in my
backyard issue. Nobody would want this happening where they live. Where
would disposal happen or is it happening? 

[Nathan Anderson:] Well, you've hit the nail on the head. All high-level
waste must be disposed of in a deep geologic repository. This was Yucca
Mountain. Presently, Yucca Mountain seems to be off the table and
consent based citing is gaining steam. But in the meantime, any
high-level waste, is stored at DOE sites until a decision is made on a
geologic repository.  

[Holly Hobbs:] What about low-activity waste, which I think you said is
the vast majority of DOE’s tank waste?

[Nathan Anderson:] In South Carolina, the Savannah River site disposes
of its low-activity waste just on its site in these huge concrete
vaults. At Hanford, a portion of the low-level waste that is to be
vitrified will be disposed of on site in the integrated disposal
facility. I’ll paint you a picture—this is like an enormous unfilled
sand swimming pool. But DOE has not yet selected a treatment method or a
disposal pathway for the other portion of Hanford’s less radioactive
waste. In our new report, we found that several disposal sites could
accept the waste if it were grouted—a method of treatment and disposal
that is better aligned with the relatively low risks that the waste
poses. And for example, there's two commercial disposal facilities in
Texas and in Utah that could receive the waste. We've also found that
there are two federal disposal facilities— one in Nevada and one in
Washington at the Hanford site— that could receive the waste from a
technical perspective.  But both states object to storing it there. 

[MUSIC]

[Holly Hobs:] So Nathan just told us that different levels of nuclear
and radioactive waste are being treated around the country, but that
there are challenges—including environmental liabilities and
unsustainable financial costs— that will grow as the Department of
Energy tries to address these challenges. So Nathan, this sounds like a
big, expensive problem. What is DOE doing about it? 

[Nathan Anderson:] Well, at the Savannah River site, DOE has already
disposed of nearly 20 million gallons of grouted waste. At the Hanford
site, DOE anticipates beginning to vitrify the first portion of the
low-activity waste, sometimes in 2024. But again, DOE hasn't made a
decision for how it's going to treat this other kind of major fraction
of the low-activity waste. We talk about in our recent report that DOE
completed the first phase of a pilot project to demonstrate the
feasibility of grouting the Hanford waste for offsite disposal. But we
found in this report that DOE could face delays in undertaking a second
phase of the pilot project because of disagreements among DOE, EPA and
the State of Washington about how a certain law applies to the treatment
of the waste.  

[Holly Hobbs:] And we've identified some opportunities for the DOE to
improve its efforts. What were they?

[Nathan Anderson:] In this most recent report, we’re recommending that
DOE expand any future analyzes of potential disposal options to include
all federal and all commercial facilities that could potentially receive
grouted, low-activity waste from Hanford.  Ultimately, by adopting
alternate treatment options and disposal locations, DOE could reduce
risks, treat waste sooner and save tens of billions of dollars.

[Holly Hobbs:] And given the challenges DOE faces, what actions might
policymakers take to help them out? 

[Nathan Anderson:] Well, we're suggesting that Congress takes two
actions. First, we're suggesting that Congress consider clarifying DOE’s
authority to manage the low-level tank waste at Hanford as a waste type
other than high-level waste. Now DOE faced a potential lawsuit on this
same issue in the early 2000s. And we believe that if Congress were to
clarify DOE's authority here, as it has already done at the Savannah
River site, it would allow DOE to kind of move forward with alternate
treatment methods without the threat of another lawsuit.  And then
second, we're suggesting that Congress allow DOE to move forward with
the second phase of its pilot project at Hanford. And this would allow
them to evaluate the feasibility of grouting the low-activity waste for
disposal out of state.  And we believe that this second matter for
Congress will allow DOE to move forward with the pilot project and
obtain needed information to inform future decision making without
delays. 

[Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of our work?

[Nathan Anderson:] The bottom line is we support risk informed decision
making, and we note that taxpayer resources are not unlimited. And at
Hanford, DOE may be able to reduce certain risks, treat waste sooner and
save tens of billions of dollars by considering alternate treatment
disposal options for its supplemental low-activity waste.  But
congressional action may be needed to enable such risk informed
decisions to be considered. 

[Holly Hobbs:] That was Nathan Anderson discussing our work on nuclear
and hazardous waste disposal. Thanks for your time, Nathan. 

[Nathan Anderson:] Thank you very much, Holly.

[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report.  To
hear more podcast, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or
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