Performance assessment for low-level radioactive waste management and disposal at DOE facilities: Requirements, review process, and lessons learned

Department of Energy (DOE) facilities, located at sites across the nation, generate large quantities and a wide variety of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) from nuclear defense production and research and development activities. All DOE-generated LLRW is disposed of at DOE disposal sites. Most DOE waste generating sites do not have disposal facilities on site and so must ship their LLRW to one of six currently active DOE disposal locations. Four disposal sites are located in generally arid regions: the Hanford Reservation (HANF) in the state of Washington, the Nevada Test Site (NTS), the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL), and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. The other two disposal sites are located in the humid southeast: The Savannah River Plant (SRP) in South Carolina and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee.