A truck loaded with TRUPACTs is about to leave the Savannah
River Site for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant |
TRUPACT
being prepared for shipment to WIPP.
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Solid Waste
Typically,
low-level waste has small amounts of radioactivity dispersed
in large amounts of material. Some low-level waste material
requires shielding during handling and transportation to minimize
exposure to transporters and waste handling operators. The
Savannah River Site (SRS) generates low-level radioactive
waste in both solid and liquid forms. Low-level waste refers
to radioactive waste that does not meet the definition of
high-level or transuranic waste. (High-level waste is highly
radioactive material resulting from the reprocessing of spent
nuclear fuel. Transuranic waste is waste contaminated with
alpha-emitting transuranium radionuclides with greater than
20-year half-lives and concentrations greater than 100 nCi/g).
This “drive-in” trench, located inside E
Area, allows shallow land burial of selected low-level
waste. It is equipped with an impermeable liner and
a sump to collect any runoff for analysis prior to disposal.
Once a trench is filled with waste, it is backfilled
with a minimum of six to eight feet of soil to reduce
surface radiation dose rate to less than 5 mrem/hour.
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The site’s
solid low-level waste includes such items as protective clothing,
tools and equipment that have become contaminated with small
amounts of radioactive material. In October 1994, SRS opened
new engineered vaults for the permanent disposal of solid
low-level waste, making SRS the first facility in the nation
to dispose of solid low-level wastes in these state-of-the-art
concrete vaults. Two types of vaults are used, one for low-activity
waste (LAW - waste radiating less than 200 mrem/hour) and
one for intermediate-activity waste (waste radiating greater
than 200 mrem/hour). The concrete used in both was specially
formulated to mitigate cracking, extending the vault life.
Low level waste also is disposed in trenches if it is very
low in radioactivity. The limits for disposal in vaults or
trenches are based on a long-term (10,000 year) Performance
Assessment that ensures that the disposed waste will meet
certain criteria such as EPA drinking water standards for
groundwater.
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