The Waste

What will be in the NPD disposal facility?

CNL is proposing to dispose of the waste at NPD via in-situ disposal. But what is “the waste” that would be disposed of at this disposal facility?

The waste – or waste inventory – is the material that currently makes up the NPD facility. As CNL plans to decommission the entire NPD facility, this material includes:

• Building demolition debris, which is conventional industrial waste
• Some asbestos and other designated substances, which were commonly used in the 1960’s and 70’s
• Contaminated components and contaminated concrete – this is the radioactive waste inventory

CNL would only be disposing of waste materials already at the NPD facility. No new waste would be disposed of at NPD.

There are two ways CNL has determined the type and quantity of waste materials at NPD.

First, our team calculated the “reference waste inventory”. This was developed through conservative estimates based on historical and current records. The reference waste inventory is the upper bound – or greatest levels of expected material – for both the radioactive and non-radioactive material. The reference inventory lets us produce a conservative analyses of the potential effects on the environment following disposal, so we can ensure that there would be no adverse effects.

Second, we have verified the reference inventory by building a “measured waste inventory”. The measured inventory confirms the reference inventory and demonstrates that we know where the waste is, and what are the hazards associated with it. We did this through physical characterization, which involves extensive sampling work completed over several years.

Starting back in 2016, the team at CNL worked to carefully categorize or characterize all of these materials. We took core samples of concrete and metals throughout the facility that were then sent away for testing.

We are confident that we know exactly what would be disposed of at NPD through in-situ disposal.