UNREVIEWED DISPOSAL QUESTION EVALUATION: CENTER SLIT TRENCHES ONE THROUGH FIVE OPERATIONAL COVERS REANALYSIS

Abstract

Operational inventory limits for the disposal of solid low-level waste in Slit Trenches 1-7 were established by the Special Analysis (SA) performed by Collard and Hamm (2008). To determine disposal limits for the Slit Trenches, the SA followed the methodology used in the 2008 PA (WSRC, 2008) which assumed that the inventories in each trench were instantaneously placed in 12/1995, which is the date when SLIT1 began operation. The 2008 SA analyzed the impact from placing storm-water runoff covers simultaneously over Slit Trenches 1-7 at 5, 10 and 15 years after the inventory was introduced. To include a measure of conservatism in the limits, the lowest of the limits calculated for any storm-water runoff cover placement time or that calculated in the original 2008 PA was chosen as the operational limit for each radionuclide. Through the availability of funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), storm-water runoff covers were placed over Slit Trenches 1-5 in December 2010. SRNL was requested to perform a UDQE for this accelerated action. Table 1 below lists the operational dates for Slit Trenches 1-5 and the time elapsed between when the first waste package was disposed in each Slit Trench and whenmore » the storm-water runoff covers were placed. As shown in Table 1, SLIT1 was covered 15.0 years after the date of the first waste package disposal. SLIT2 was covered 9.2 years after the date of the first waste package disposal in SLIT2 which falls within the window of {+-} 1.0 year within which the 2008 SA cover time analysis was assumed to be valid (Crowley and Butcher, 2008). Therefore, the analysis of SLIT1 and SLIT2 in the 2008 SA is considered adequate. However, the cover timings for SLIT3, SLIT4 and SLIT5 are from 2.2 to 1.6 years beyond the nearest cover time of 5 years assumed in the 2008 SA analysis and fall outside of the acceptable one-year margin. Therefore, an additional study was conducted by Collard et al. (2011) that assessed the impact on Slit Trench performance from a covering date that is between 12/2010 and 9/2011. Accelerated placement of storm-water runoff covers over Slit Trenches 1-5 put the cover timing outside of the range considered in the 2008 SA (Collard and Hamm, 2008) which establishes Slit Trench disposal limits. Results from a recent study (Collard et al., 2011) demonstrate that the actual cover installation in December 2010 produces acceptable Slit Trench performance. Additionally, covering Slit Trench 5 separately from Slit Trenches 6 and 7, which will be operationally closed at a later date, does not adversely affect performance of the operationally closed trenches.« less