Preliminary Safety Design Report for Remote Handled Low-Level Waste Disposal Facility

Abstract

A new onsite, remote-handled low-level waste disposal facility has been identified as the highest ranked alternative for providing continued, uninterrupted remote-handled low-level waste disposal for remote-handled low-level waste from the Idaho National Laboratory and for nuclear fuel processing activities at the Naval Reactors Facility. Historically, this type of waste has been disposed of at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex. Disposal of remote-handled low-level waste in concrete disposal vaults at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex will continue until the facility is full or until it must be closed in preparation for final remediation of the Subsurface Disposal Area (approximately at the end of Fiscal Year 2017). This preliminary safety design report supports the design of an onsite remotehandled low-level waste disposal facility by providing an initial nuclear facility hazard categorization, discussing site characteristics that impact accident analysis, providing the facility and process information necessary to support the hazard analysis, identifying and evaluating potential hazards for processes associated with onsite handling and disposal of remote-handled low-level waste, and discussing the need for safety features that will become part of the facility design. This safety basis does not include the potential for offsite low-level waste shipments.