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Published: 2001

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This feasibility study report presents a draft design of the Vitrified Waste Interim Storage Facility (VWISF), which is one of three subprojects of the Idaho Waste Vitrification Facilities (IWVF) project. The primary goal of the IWVF project is to design and construct a treatment process system that will vitrify the sodium-bearing waste (SBW) to a final waste form. The project will consist of three subprojects that include the Waste Collection Tanks Facility, the Waste Vitrification Facility (WVF), and the VWISF. The Waste Collection Tanks Facility will provide for waste collection, feed mixing, and surge storage for SBW and newly generated liquid waste from ongoing operations at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center. The WVF will contain the vitrification process that will mix the waste with glass-forming chemicals or frit and turn the waste into glass. The VWISF will provide a shielded storage facility for the glass until the waste can be disposed at either the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant as mixed transuranic waste or at the future national geological repository as high-level waste glass, pending the outcome of a Waste Incidental to Reprocessing determination, which is currently in progress. A secondary goal is to provide a facility that can be easily modified later to accommodate storage of the vitrified high-level waste calcine. The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility of the VWISF, which would be constructed in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. This project supports the Department of Energy's Environmental Management missions of safely storing and treating radioactive wastes as well as meeting Federal Facility Compliance commitments made to the State of Idaho.