Tritiated mixed waste delisting petition

[Cameron Huff <clhuff@lbl.gov>]

This message is posted on behalf of the National Tritium Labeling
Facility at LBNL.


Dear Colleague:

I am writing to inform you of some significant recent actions taken by
the
E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) which may be of
interest
to you.  The actions involved tritiated mixed waste treatment residues,
and
consisted of a Delisting Petition, and a Demonstration of Combustion
Technology/Petition for Approval of Alternative Treatment Method from
the
US EPA.  A full description of these actions can be seen at:
http://www.lbl.gov/LBL-Programs/tritium/delisting/
The materials available there include the full text of the Public
Notice, a
Summary sheet, an EPA Fact Sheet on Delisting Petitions, and the full
text
of the Delisting Petition with most of the Attachments.

As you may be aware, a full solution for treatment and disposal of high
tritium content tritiated mixed waste is a very difficult problem.  For
most generators the problem consists of four major questions:
1.      Under what authority can tritiated mixed waste be treated?
2.      Which treatment methods are appropriate and will prove
satisfactory?
3.      Is the treatment method an accepted technology or will the US
EPA concur that it is an acceptable technology for such treatment?
4.      How can the treated residue be disposed?

Under a state-authorized "Treatability Study" (Q.1) LBNL has conducted a

program to research tritiated mixed waste oxidation using the catalytic
chemical oxidation (CCO) approach.  This approach has been highly
successful (Q.2) for the waste in question, leading to complete
destruction
of organic components.  The recent actions by LBNL are designed to
address Q.3 and
Q.4.  In particular, LBNL has asked EPA to review our data and concur
that
the CCO technology is an acceptable technology for this treatment (Q.3).

In addition LBNL has proposed that the treatment residues are suitable
for
Delisting, and may subsequently be disposed to the land at a Low-level
Radioactive Waste (LLRW) landfill (Q.4).

I hope that you understand the significance of these actions with
respect
to your own institution, and to the overall management of mixed waste in

the USA.  I encourage you to review our Petition and accompanying
documents.  The EPA ruling on these issues will be published in the
Federal
Register within the next 3-6 months, and there will be a 30-day public
comment period.  We hope to gain significant peer support for the first
demonstration of an environmentally superior management scheme for a
previously unmanageable type of waste.

Yours Sincerely.
Philip G. Williams.

P.S.  If you receive more than one copy of this message, please alert me
to
that fact by replying to the offending messages c/- PGWilliams@lbl.gov.
[Local_List]
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*  Dr. Philip G. Williams                      *  Mailstop 75-123      *

*  Co-Principal Investigator                   *                       *

*  National Tritium Labelling Facility         *  510/486-7336: Voice  *

*  E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory  *  510/486-4877: Fax    *

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*  Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A.                  *  PGWilliams@LBL.GOV   *

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