nuclear-news

Savannah River Nuclear Site – inadequate radiation protection

NRC: SRS Saltstone facility’s radiation exposure may exceed limit in 10K years  Aiken Standard 5/4/2012 By ANNA DOLIANITIS – Staff writer – email:adolianitis@aikenstandard.com A recent report released by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expressed concern that the Saltstone Disposal Facility at the Savannah River Site may not meet the standards to prevent radiation exposure to the Site’s surrounding population in the long term….. Approximately
36 million gallons of liquid waste resulting from reprocessing spent
nuclear fuel is stored in 49 underground carbon steel tanks at SRS.
When separated, the low-level waste – salt waste – is treated and
mixed with dry materials to form grout waste called saltstone.
The saltstone is disposed of in underground units in the SDF.
When the NRC considered the calculations provided by DOE, the
commission disagreed with many of the assumptions in DOE’s model.
“The requirement is that, in this case, the dose to the public in the
immediate area would not exceed a certain level within 10,000 years,”
McIntyre said. “When we crunched the numbers, the doses exceeded (the
allotted amount) before 10,000 years.”…
http://www.aikenstandard.com/story/050512-SRS-Saltstone-facility–3978857

May 5, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA