April 2020

Assessment of the Radioactive Waste Certification Program at Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. for Shipments to U.S. Department of Energy Sites

This assessment is in response to the Deputy Secretary of Energy’s July 9, 2019, memorandum directing the Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) to undertake a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-wide assessment of the procedures and practices for packaging and shipping radioactive waste. Radioactive waste management at Nuclear Fuel Services, Incorporated (NFS) is regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the state of Tennessee, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); however, some of its radioactive waste is shipped to DOE sites for treatment and/or disposal. This assessment focused on the waste certification program at NFS for shipments to DOE sites, specifically: (1) the shipment of potential transuranic (TRU) waste by NFS to the DOE Transuranic Waste Processing Center (TWPC) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee for characterization, packaging, and shipment by TWPC for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) as TRU waste or at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) for waste that TWPC characterizes as low-level waste (LLW); and (2) the characterization, packaging, and shipment of LLW by NFS to NNSS for disposal.