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Statement of Task

The committee first provides focused responses to the specific questions in the National Academies Statement of Task (Appendix B). In subsequent chapters, the committee addresses additional aspects of the “technical quality and completeness” of the federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) report.

Question 1. Has the FFRDC produced a decision framework for SLAW?

As described in the committee’s first two reports, and by the previous supplemental low-activity waste (SLAW) committee, a “framework of decisions” is a structured way to present side-by-side comparisons of a limited number of options for managing SLAW, in a format that is useful for decision making (NASEM, 2022a, b). The elements of a framework are:

• Identification and analysis of relevant factors that would make a difference in the choice among alternatives or options;
• Identification and description of a limited number of options that offer meaningful differences among each other, for the decision makers to consider in making choices;
• Comparison of the options according to the factors. Comparison is central to a framework, because comparing and then choosing are the essence of decision making;
• Clear presentation of comparisons and choices is as important as the other elements of the framework, because the purpose of the framework is to enable good decisions. It follows that the framework should enable direct comparisons of the options and should simplify comparisons and choices to the extent possible consistent with completeness and accuracy.

Using this understanding of “framework of decisions,” the committee finds, as it has throughout the current review, that the FFRDC has indeed prepared such a framework for decision makers to use. It has met the above criteria. In addition, the latest iteration of the FFRDC report includes a number of new side-by-side, pairwise comparisons of options that are particularly helpful. The committee cautions, however, that the choice among grout options do not have significant costs differences to favor one grouting option but should be seen as a general method.

Finding 1. As the committee has reported in its prior reviews, the FFRDC has produced a useful framework for deciding how to treat and dispose of SLAW. While its application has some important limitations, which are described below, the latest FFRDC report contains the key elements of a decision framework and provides an evaluation of the key criteria that the FFRDC is qualified, as subject matter experts, to address.

Finding 2. The latest report contains several new and revised ways of comparing the alternatives and a subset of options for each alternative according to relevant criteria (i.e., tables that highlight different factors and make different pairwise comparisons), which will be helpful to decision makers (Bates et al., 2023, Vol. I, Sections 4 and 6, Appendix E).

Finding 3. The FFRDC’s application of the full decision framework that it has developed is incomplete from a decision maker’s perspective because two important decision criteria that were discussed in the report have, appropriately, not been included explicitly in the comparative analysis by the FFRDC during its evaluation: regulatory approval and public acceptance. The committee considers it appropriate for the FFRDC not to have evaluated these two criteria because that requires policy judgments outside of the FFRDC’s areas of expertise. However, the committee considers it important that decision makers recognize that they should scrutinize the robustness of the FFRDC’s recommendation in the context of their own judgments regarding these two remaining criteria.

Question 2. Did the FFRDC consider all of the factors listed in NDAA 2021 (and, by reference, NDAA 2017)?

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 (NDAA 2021) listed numerous factors and it incorporated by reference Section 3134 of the NDAA 2017. The factors are comprehensive and common to environmental health and safety decisions, overlapping substantially with criteria identified in major environmental statutes like Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA).

The FFRDC systematically organized the NDAA 2021 factors into six top-level criteria for analysis, as follows:

1. Long-term effectiveness (environmental and safety risk after disposal),
2. Implementation schedule and risk (environmental and safety risks prior to mission completion, including risks driven by waste tank storage duration),
3. Likelihood of successful mission completion (including technical, engineering, and resource-related risks),
4. Life-cycle costs (discounted present value),
5. Securing and maintaining necessary permits/authorities (regulatory approval), and
6. Community/public acceptance (state/local).

The first four of these were further disaggregated into multiple levels of more detailed sub-criteria and the criteria were cross-walked to the NDAA requirements to ensure the FFRDC report’s completeness. The last two were not further subdivided, presumably because the FFRDC did not directly include them in its analysis, instead treating them as uncertainties to be managed by the relevant decision makers.

Finding 4. The FFRDC considered and gathered information concerning all of the statutorily required factors. While two important criteria—regulatory approval and public acceptance—were treated as uncertainties and not included in the team’s comparative analysis, their potential importance as obstacles to implementation of any given alternative or option was acknowledged. This is discussed further in Finding 17 and in the narratives associated with other findings below. In the case of regulatory approval, a thorough summary of issues was provided as an appendix in the FFRDC report (Bates et al., 2023, Vol. II, Appendix I). Note, additional factors might result from the ongoing Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) Consent Decree/Order negotiations but were not considered due to the confidentiality of the negotiations.

Finding 5. The FFRDC did an excellent job of disaggregating the technical statutory criteria into specific factual considerations that can be analyzed, often quantified, and compared with each other. (This is not the same as weighting the criteria for the purposes of a recommendation or decision as discussed below.)

Question 3. Did the FFRDC provide additional analysis of grout?

The FFRDC provided detailed and extensive additional analysis of options and pathways related to grouting, as well as some valuable critical technical assessment documentation that summarized past and ongoing research into grout formulations and performance in a manner that is effectively communicated. In particular, Bates et al., 2023, Vol. II, Appendix A (Recent Grout Advances) is an insightful assessment of the state of the art in grout research and testing.

The FFRDC framed and formulated 15 potential grouting options, named Grouts 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, and 6, as defined in Appendix C. These options include different combinations of pretreatment for radionuclide removal; grout plant operations on- or off-site; and disposal in the Integrated Disposal Facility (IDF), in vaults, or off-site. Among the options presented, Grout 4B (grouting and disposal both off-site) and Grout 6 (phasing from off-site grouting and disposal to on-site grouting and disposal) were selected for full and detailed investigation because they were undominated¹ options.

Finding 6. The FFRDC report considered grout in greater detail than the prior FFRDC report, including (a) analyzing 15 grout options, (b) analyzing various off-site scenarios for grout treatment and disposal, (c) considering in detail the Savannah River Site (SRS) experience with grout treatment [FFRDC presentation January 31, 2023, slides 150 and 151, and (Bates et al., 2023), Vol. I, Appendix D 3.7, and Vol. II, Appendix H]. The main criteria

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¹ An option is said to be dominated if there is another option that scores at least as well on every decision criterion, and better on at least one criterion.

used to defend consideration of off-site vendors was the cost effectiveness of off-site grouting and the ability to start LAW treatment earlier using an already operational grouting facility off-site.

Finding 7. While the FFRDC provided additional analysis of grout, it also offered a specific recommendation that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) expeditiously begin to develop multiple off-site, out-of-state pathways for either grouted SLAW or off-site treatment of liquid SLAW and off-site disposal. The recommendation is not identification of a preferred option (as one would expect in an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and associated Record of Decision), but rather seeks to identify a course of action, such as a programmatic EIS, that would remove SLAW from the Hanford site (and Washington State) quicker than the current plan of record.

Recommendation A. Within the scope of the committee’s Statement of Task, the FFRDC report should be accepted as a useful technical framework for future decisions about the treatment and disposal of SLAW. Should the grout technology be chosen, detailed analysis will need to be done to select the best grout option and to implement it.