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Those rules would allow the agency to reclassify some high-level waste based on its radioactive concentrations.

When construction started on the vitrification plant 22 years ago, plans called for the largest building, the Pretreatment Facility, to be used to separate tank waste into low activity and high-level waste streams for separate treatment and disposal.

But more recently, DOE has been able to separate some the least radioactive waste with a system set up near the tanks that uses filtration and an ion exchange system to remove the high-level waste, bypassing the unfinished Pretreatment Facility.

An analysis released in early 2023 on options for preparing high-level waste for treatment rated an option the highest that would not use the massive, partially built Pretreatment Facility if smaller facilities were built.

Work on the vitrification’s High-Level Waste Facility, which is not fully constructed, continues to meet a federal court deadline to start treating the most radioactive tank waste in 2033.