Nuclear Material Disposition – A Twofold Advantage!

The Y-12 National Security Complex has inventories of residue material from manufacturing and recovery processes that contain accountable highly enriched uranium (HEU). Many materials have low concentrations of 235U that are not economical for recovery and must be removed to meet site needs. Some of these materials contain Resource Conversation and Recovery Act (RCRA) waste and are included on the Oak Ridge Reservation Site Treatment Plan (STP) agreement with the State of Tennessee. Recent changes with disposal facility waste acceptance criteria and revised discard limits for selected HEU material forms have made it possible to disposition these materials. Y-12 began moving the first of these STP materials offsite to disposal in 2007. Through the end of May 2009, over 1600 inventory items of material had been processed and disposed at either the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Nevada Test Site or EnergySolutions in Utah. This residue disposition project is part of a broader Y-12 effort to identify and move out low-equity materials through the Highly Enriched Uranium Disposition Program and the Nuclear Materials Management and Storage Program. Removal of these materials from Y-12 is an important and essential activity required to deinventory facilities undergoing deactivation, meet State of Tennessee regulatory requirements, optimize storage space, and increase safety and security for Y-12 operations. The paper will discuss the background, approval process, disposition approach including packaging and transportation, and successes of this project.