An innovative solution for legacy VLLW treatment - 13006

In France, radwaste repositories are owned and managed by ANDRA (French national agency for radwaste management). ANDRA first repository was design for low level rad waste (LLW). It opened in 1992. When ANDRA announced the creation of a new repository for very low level rad waste (VLLW), CEA decided to build in its Cadarache site a temporary storage building to sort VLLW from LLW. The sorting was based on: - Contamination rates below 4 Bq/cm² in βγ and 0.4 Bq/cm² in α, - Irradiation level below 0,5 mSv/h. The VLLW were stored in 15 m³ open-top containers that can be stacked up to 4 levels. This temporary storage was full before the repository opened. The remaining VLLW were stored directly by the producer's facilities. When the VLLW repository opened in August 1993, each main producer (EDF, Areva and CEA) created their own VLLW route with ANDRA. For CEA Cadarache, the start was difficult. Attempt to transfer those legacy VLLW directly to ANDRA failed most of the time, and the time spent to take care of those waste was then not spent on the evacuation of every-day production. So starting 2006 priority was given to the every-day production rather than to legacy VLLW. A year later, the Direction for Decommissioning and Waste Management of the CEA (DEN/DADN) decided to look for a contractor able to solve out the problem. DEN/DADN wanted an innovative solution so they went for an innovative tendering option to question the market: competitive dialogue. In this kind of tender, the potential contractor is free to propose any solution he finds technically compliant and cost effective to address the client needs. Each proposal, technical and financial, was discussed between the CEA and each potential contractors on 'one to one' sessions. In this case, the expression of need was very simple: 'Propose a solution to evacuate around 20 000 m³ of legacy VLLW, from seven CEA sites, spread over France, to ANDRA site near by Troyes. Necessarily, that final package must be compliant with all the requirements of ANDRA acceptance criteria VLLW'. Three different companies went through all the way of this competitive dialogue and the solution was chosen in 2008. The best and so, chosen solution consisted in the creation of a new facility, dedicated to VLLW. So the reference solution was direct transport from the producer and the temporary storage (in Cadarache) to this new facility named STARC, instead of treating those legacies VLLW on site. This was the DAHER solution. The main goal of finding an innovative solution for CEA's legacy VLLW treatment was of course to bring those wastes back to the regular route for VLLW according to French legal framework of reference. The choice to reprocess the waste packaged, long time ago, in large container to smaller standard packages has a cost but it gives guaranty of compliance to actual specification and it allows incentive reduction of the final volume to be stored like advised by the French Safety Authorities. On the top, the developed solution offer a guaranty that waste traceability can be performed without interruption and/or manual interferences from the client (waste owner), to the contractor (waste producer), to the final repository in the owner name. Through this project, DAHER NCS create an efficient new route for large volume and large piece of waste, but complementary and integrated in a full scale service, from the producer site to final repository, including logistic, transport, containers management, on-site and in STARC waste treatment and characterization. This kind of solution allows clients to externalize safely and as soon as possible the waste management process. Thus it minimizes on-site temporary storage, improves evacuation flows in order to prevent potential blockage with negative consequences on plant operations or decommissioning programs. (authors)