[DOE
LETTERHEAD]
May 25, 2004
The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities
Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite
700
Washington, DC 20004-2901
Dear Mr. Chairman:
The purpose of this letter is to
provide the response to your letter of November 7, 2003, regarding the
retrieval, storage, and disposal of the waste drums containing Pu-238. The initial response on February 3, 2004,
provided historical data, challenges faced, and activities being done to
provide a plan to safely retrieve and disposition the Pu-238 drums.
The preferred processing path is
to transfer the material to the Savannah River Site (SRS) for processing due to
their extensive experience with this type of material. The SRS path includes a variety of challenges
and the Department is also preparing an alternate on-site processing path as
described in the attachment. The onsite
processing path and one of the SRS paths will result in disposal at the Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). An option that
SRS may implement, if the material is shipped to SRS, is to dissolve the
material through the canyons into storage tanks to await final disposition. The enclosure documents the conclusion that
exiting procedures can be modified to safely retrieve this material. A general
description of the processing paths and major remaining actions, along with
estimated timeframes, is provided. The
onsite processing path will be implemented only if the SRS path is eliminated. An update will be provided to the Board when
the disposal plans and interim storage plans are finalized.
I have asked the Richland
Operations Office to keep your staff apprised of the progress in the
disposition these drums. Should you or
your staff have any questions concerning these issues, please contact me at
(202) 586-0738 or Keith Klein, Manager Richland Operations Office, at (509)
376-7395.
Sincerely,
Dr. Inés Triay
Deputy Chief Operating Officer
Environmental Management
cc: M. Whitaker, DR/DOE
K.
Klein, RL