DOE Has Increased Emphasis on Its Source Recovery Project and Begun Assessing Options for Disposing of GTCC Waste

DOE has placed increased emphasis on its source recovery project and has  begun to assess disposal options for GTCC waste. Finally, DOE has begun preparing an  environmental impact statement to assess possible disposal options for  GTCC waste. Further, DOE has not yet determined  when a permanent GTCC waste disposal facility will be available. As of June 7, 2005, DOE had recovered 10,806 of these sources. DOE Expanded the Scope of Its Source Recovery Project to Include Non-GTCC Waste, Which Could Increase Project Expenditures

DOE has expanded its source recovery efforts to include all sealed  radiological sources that could present a threat, a change that could  increase project expenditures. Further, DOE may need to recover even more non- GTCC waste from unwanted sealed radiological sources in the future if  licensees in many states lose access to the only commercial low-level  radioactive waste disposal site where they can currently dispose of higher  radioactive non-GTCC waste (classes B and C waste). DOE’s current  policy does not include using DOE sites to permanently dispose of this  waste because, among other reasons, it does not want to undermine the  authority the Congress gave to the states to provide disposal availability for  non-GTCC waste. Under the expanded scope of the source recovery project, DOE has  developed a priority scheme for deciding which sources to recover and  when to do so. It cost DOE approximately $581,000 to recover  hundreds of these sources that had accumulated at a bankrupt firm in  Pennsylvania and to commercially dispose of them. DOE Lacks Information to Better Identify Unwanted Sealed Radiological Sources That May Need Recovery

DOE lacks information that would assist in its efforts to identify and  recover unwanted sealed radiological sources that pose a safety or security  risk. This, in turn, might lead to increased costs for DOE’s source recovery  efforts. Recommendations for Executive Action

We recommend that the Secretary of Energy and the Chairman of the  Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in collaboration with the Task Force on  Radiation Source Protection and Security, evaluate and report on   the cost implications of a potential expansion of DOE’s recovery and  disposal of non-GTCC waste from sealed radiological sources,  options for DOE to recoup these costs from licensees that may have no  commercial waste disposal options,  the feasibility of disposing of this waste at DOE sites, and  how a national source tracking system can be designed and  implemented to improve DOE’s ability to identify and track sealed  radiological sources that may need DOE recovery and disposal. The radioactivity of an individual source is clearly  one measure of its potential safety and security risk. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are  listed in appendix V.

Scope and Methodology

In our review, we examined (1) the status of the Department of Energy’s  (DOE) efforts to recover unwanted sealed radiological sources and develop  a disposal option for greater-than-class C (GTCC) waste, (2) DOE actions  taken to recover and dispose of unwanted non-GTCC waste from sealed  radiological sources, and (3) the extent to which DOE can identify and  track unwanted sealed radiological sources for recovery and disposal.
Why GAO Did This Study

Concerns remain over the control of sealed radiological sources, widely used in many industrial and medical devices and applications. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Department of Energy (DOE), and states have responsibilities for ensuring the safe and secure use and eventual disposal of these sources as low-level radioactive wastes. DOE must ensure disposal availability for greater-than-class C (GTCC) waste; states must do so for non-GTCC waste, that is, classes A, B, and C waste. NRC and DOE also collaborate to identify and recover unwanted sources that are not safe or secure. GAO examined DOE's (1) efforts to recover unwanted sources and develop a GTCC waste disposal option, (2) actions to recover and dispose of non-GTCC source waste, and (3) ability to identify sources for recovery and disposal.

What GAO Found

DOE has increased emphasis on its source recovery project and begun the process of identifying disposal options for GTCC waste. DOE transferred project responsibilities to another office that has given the project higher priority and accelerated DOE's recovery efforts. DOE exceeded an earlier goal for recovering sources and has now collected over 10,800 of them. This recovery has been facilitated by additional project funding support and DOE's resolving a shortage of storage space for certain sources. In May 2005, DOE issued a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement to assess GTCC waste disposal options; however, DOE has not yet determined when a disposal site might be made available. DOE has expanded the scope of its recovery effort to include non-GTCC waste from sealed radiological sources, a change that could increase DOE expenditures. DOE recovered and commercially disposed of 443 of these sources from a bankrupt firm, at a cost to DOE of about $581,000. Given that unwanted sources in storage present higher vulnerabilities, DOE might need to recover more of them in the future if the commercial disposal site that currently accepts this non-GTCC waste from most states ceases to do so as planned in 2008. Lacking a commercial disposal option, DOE anticipates storing this waste, rather than disposing of it at DOE sites, because, among other reasons, it does not want to undermine the responsibility the Congress gave the states to provide disposal availability for non-GTCC waste. DOE lacks information that would assist its efforts to identify and recover unwanted sealed radiological sources that may pose a safety and security risk. DOE has useful information on the sources in its possession, including recovered sources. However, DOE does not know how many sources might need recovery and how much disposal capacity is needed for GTCC waste. NRC is developing a national source tracking system that would not be useful for DOE's source recovery efforts because it is only designed to track individual sources with high radioactivity. According to DOE, nearly all of the sites where it has recovered sources contained individual sources with lesser radioactivity than would be tracked by NRC, but their combined radioactivity posed enough of a risk to warrant their recovery by DOE.