The management of low-level radioactive and mixed wastes at Oak Ridge National Laboratory [electronic resource]
The management of low-level radioactive wastes at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is complicated because of several factors: (1) some of the waste that had been disposed previously does not meet current acceptance criteria; (2) waste is presently being generated both because of ongoing operatio...
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Online Access |
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| Format: | Government Document Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Washington, D.C. : Oak Ridge, Tenn. :
United States. Dept. of Defense ; distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy,
1991.
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| Summary: | The management of low-level radioactive wastes at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is complicated because of several factors: (1) some of the waste that had been disposed previously does not meet current acceptance criteria; (2) waste is presently being generated both because of ongoing operations as well as the remediation of former disposal sites; and (3) low-level radioactive waste streams that also contain chemically toxic species (mixed wastes) are involved. As a consequence, the waste management activities at ORNL range from the application of standard practices to the development of new technologies to address the various waste management problems. Considerable quantities of low-level radioactive wastes had been disposed in trenches at the ORNL site, and the trenches subsequently covered with landfill. Because the vadose zone is not very extensive in the waste burial area, many of these trenches were located partially or totally within the saturated zone. As a result, considerable amounts of radioactive cesium have been leached from the wastes and have entered the groundwater system. Efforts are currently underway to remediate the problem by excluding groundwater transport through the burial site. A number of waste streams have also been generated that not only contain low levels of radioactive species, but chemically noxious species as well. These mixed wastes'' are currently subject to storage and disposal restrictions imposed on both low-level radioactive materials and on substances subject to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Technologies currently under development at ORNL to treat these mixed wastes are directed toward separating the RCRA components from the radioactive species, either through destruction of the organic component using chemical or biochemical processes, or the application of solvent extraction or precipitation techniques to effect separation into dependent waste forms. 8 refs., 3 figs. |
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| Item Description: | Published through the Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information. 01/01/1991. "conf-920414-1" "DE92000677" 8. Pacific basin nuclear conference, Taipei (Taiwan, Province of China), 12-16 Apr 1992. Malinauskas, A.P. |
| Physical Description: | Pages: (10 p) : digital, PDF file. |