See Also
Contact INL Oversight
Boise
Office
1410
N. Hilton
Boise,
ID 83706
ph:
(208) 373-0498
fx: (208) 373-0429
Idaho
Falls Office
900
N. Skyline Dr.
Idaho
Falls, ID 83402
ph:
(208) 528-2600
fx:
(208) 528-2605
INL
Oversight Staff List
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Waste at INL:
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| 1950s |
In July 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission opened a new landfill at what is now the INL.
From 1952 until 1959, taped cardboard boxes of radioactively contaminated garbage were dumped into trenches 1 through 15. The trenches averaged 6 feet wide, 13 feet deep and about 900 feet long. |
Rocky Flats Waste at Pit 1 |
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No attempt was made to line the trenches or to prevent contaminated waste from coming out of the boxes. In some cases, when radioactivity levels of the waste were excessively high, wooden boxes or metal cans were used in place of the cardboard boxes. At times the radiation levels of the waste were high enough to require special transport vehicles to protect workers. Much of the early waste came from the INL nuclear reactor facilities.
The Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado began sending waste to INL in 1954. Waste from the weapons manufacturing process contained both industrial chemicals and transuranic elements like plutonium.
In 1957, due to the need to bury items too large for trenches, the first large pit (called Pit 1) was excavated at the burial grounds. Because disposal records were not required until 1959, information on waste buried before that time is very limited. Records sometime weren’t even clear as to the locations of trenches, but later geophysical studies have provided that information.
In late 1959, the AEC designated the INL burial grounds as an interim disposal facility for both commercial and government generators of nuclear waste. Until 1963, waste generated at a variety of locations around the country was shipped to INL and buried in pits 2 through 5 and trenches 16 through 25. |
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| 1960s |
| During the early 1960s new standards were established to improve disposal operations, including keeping better disposal records.
But, ironically, one of the "improvements" increased the spread of contamination. Starting in 1963, and continuing until 1969, drums of waste from the Rocky Flats plant were randomly dumped in pits 4 through 9 and in trenches 26 through 50, rather than being stacked in an orderly way. This was done to reduce labor costs and minimize worker radiation exposures, but caused drums to break open and likely resulted in more contamination movement into the soil and rock layers over the aquifer.
Further compounding the waste containment problem was the practice instituted from 1964 to 1970 of dropping a heavy steel plate to compress waste once it was in the trenches. This practice crushed the boxes and drums, commonly resulting in the release of their contents.
In 1962, and again in 1969, excessive water runoff due to rainfall and snow melting on frozen ground caused open waste pits to fill with water. Waste drums and boxes floated in the pits, and some moved a considerable distance. Large volumes of water flowing through crushed and broken waste containers likely resulted in movement of the contaminants towards the aquifer. |
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Unloading barrels of waste from a fire at Rocky Flats into Pit 10. The Department of Energy now considers Rocky Flats a triumph of the cleanup program. But, much of the waste generated at the
Rocky Flats site isn't cleaned up...
it's here in Idaho.
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| 1970s |
| In 1970, a new policy required separate and retrievable storage of all transuranic waste. From this point on, transuranic waste was sent to the Transuranic Storage Area adjacent to the burial grounds. During the 1970s, DOE also retrieved barrels from Pits 11 and 12 and placed them in the Transuranic Storage Area. Radioactive waste that was not classified as transuranic continued to be buried in pits 10 to 16 and trenches 51 to 58.
In 1972, a special asphalt pad, Pad A, was constructed for segregated disposal of waste contaminated with transuranic radionuclides at concentrations less than that required to meet the definition of transuranic waste. It was used until 1978.
Starting in 1977, unlined, vertical soil vaults with diameters of 1 to 7 feet and an average depth of 12 feet were used for disposal of waste with higher radiation levels. Soil vaults 1 to 13 were used concurrently with the trenches for disposal of high-radiation, remotely handled waste until the use of burial trenches was stopped in 1981. |
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Stacked barrels - probably Pit 10 |
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| From 1970 to 1985, amid concerns about the continued availability of burial space, several changes were made to disposal practices. Waste was now compacted prior to disposal and standard packaging criteria were established. The pits were also made larger using heavy equipment and, at times, by blasting the bedrock with explosives to make the pits deeper. |
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Waste sits in Transuranic Storage Area, 1971. |
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Waste being stacked in 1971. |
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| 1980s & 1990s |
| In 1982, DOE redefined transuranic waste, instituting a ten-fold increase in the level of radioactivity required to meet the new definition. This definition change did not,
however, result in any additional "alpha-contaminated waste" being buried in the pits and trenches—DOE has prohibited placing such waste in the INL burial ground since 1970.
In 1984, INL stopped receiving low-level waste from other sites, and now only uses the burial grounds for low-level waste from INL activities.
The current era of waste disposal at the burial grounds began in 1985, when new environmental regulations prevented burying hazardous wastes in the pits. Prior to 1985, much radioactive waste also contained hazardous constituents, like organic solvents and metals.
Pits 17 to 20, used since 1985, are known as the "Active Pit." The large excavation that comprises these pits was blasted 33 feet into the bedrock. The exposed basalt was covered by 2 feet of soil and a thin layer of gravel to reduce leaching of contaminants to the aquifer. Containers of waste are stacked in the pits to a maximum height of about 24 feet, and as sections become full, the waste is covered with 4 feet of fine-grained soil. This soil cover is then sloped and compacted and seeded with native grasses for erosion control. To prevent water from entering, the excavated area containing pits 17-20 also has a contoured earthen berm surrounding it.
While waste with lower radiation levels is placed in the pits, higher radiation waste is kept shielded in soil vaults (discontinued in 1993) and concrete vaults. About 200 concrete vaults are located along the southwest corner of pit 20, and less then half of them have been filled with remote-handled, low-level radioactive waste. After waste is placed into the vaults, a 4-foot thick reinforced concrete plug is placed over the top of the vault, and the vault is sealed from moisture using a silicone adhesive. |
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Modern waste disposal methods, 1999. This waste, in Pit 17, 18, or 19 is covered up now. The buildings in the background are from an unsuccessful attempt to clean up Pit 9. They will be removed. |
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