During the various processing activities in the production of plutonium for the U.S. national defense programs, waste by-products were generated. These wastes, which have been generated over about the past 40 years at sites such as Savannah River Plant in South Carolina and Hanford in Washington, have been stored in underground tanks. Plans for the final disposal of the Savannah River Plan waste have now been documented [1] and call for the decontaminated soluble fraction of the waste to be mixed with cementitious materials and disposed of in near-surface trenches [2]. The radionuclide fraction of the soluble waste and the insoluble fraction of the waste will be converted to glass and sent to a geologic repository. In order for the repository to accept the glass, certain performance criteria must be met. Although not fully defined, it is certain that these criteria will include some specification on the rate of release of nuclides from the glass waste form when contacted by water.
Defense transuranic waste at the Savannah River Plant, Aiken, South Carolina. Supplemental alternatives for long-term management