Radioactive waste assay at the West Valley Demonstration Project

The decontamination and decommissioning of the West Valley nuclear reprocessing plant is generating a large variety of types of radioactive waste which require classification in accordance with 10CFR61. A radioactive waste assay system has been developed to efficiently assay and classify this radioactive waste. The waste is assayed by segmented gamma counting, passive neutron counting, dose rate conversion, and/or laboratory analysis. The system is capable of handling all the waste from generated at the West Valley Demonstration Project. The system produces a list of nuclides present with their concentrations and determines the classification of the waste based on the criteria contained in 10 CFR 61