Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)

The U.S. Energy Department is prioritizing installing a new permanent ventilation system and replacing aging infrastructure at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico, according to the newly released fiscal 2019 budget justification document for the Office of Environmental Management. The $403 million WIPP budget request for the budget year starting Oct. 1 […]

It could take some time for the Energy Department to decide how to handle 113 drums of inappropriately remediated nitrate salts stored at a privately operated disposal site in Texas, a senior DOE official said last week. The waste originated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which as of this month has […]

The U.S. Energy Department is prioritizing installing a new permanent ventilation system and replacing aging infrastructure at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico, according to the newly released fiscal 2019 budget justification document for the Office of Environmental Management. The WIPP budget request for the budget year starting Oct. 1 includes $84 […]

The fiscal 2018 omnibus budget bill signed by President Donald Trump on Friday would provide $7.1 billion for Department of Energy’s environmental management activities, $706 million above the $6.4 billion fiscal 2017 enacted level. That amounts to roughly an 11-percent increase on a year-over-year basis. Congress by early Friday approved the $1.3 trillion budget that […]

PHOENIX, Ariz. — During 2017, its first year of operation following a nearly three-year shutdown, the Energy Department Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico resumed disposing of transuranic waste, tightened its vetting of incoming shipments, and resumed salt mining, officials said this week. The nation’s only underground repository for TRU waste, which is overseen […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, this morning will kick off the plenary session for the 2018 Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Ariz. Fleischmann, whose district includes the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation, will speak this morning at the Phoenix Convention Center alongside Billy Morrison, CEO of Veolia Nuclear […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry ducked and dodged in the first congressional hearing of the year about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget, evading questions from the dais about when the agency would provide a congressionally mandated cost estimate that could allow it to cancel a massive plutonium disposal plant under construction at the Savannah […]

The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into vitrified glass by the end of 2021, in advance of a legal deadline, the highest-ranking official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant energy secretary for environmental management, […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board is preparing to issue a recommendation on the future of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), sources said this week. The Energy Department advisory board will hear public input on potential future uses for the AMWTP during a conference call on March 28. The […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry ducked and dodged in the first congressional hearing of the year about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget, evading questions from the dais about when the agency would provide a congressionally mandated cost estimate that could allow it to cancel a massive plutonium disposal plant under construction at the Savannah […]

The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into vitrified glass by the end of 2021, in advance of a legal deadline, the highest-ranking official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant energy secretary for environmental management, […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board is preparing to issue a recommendation on the future of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), sources said this week. The Energy Department advisory board will hear public input on potential future uses for the AMWTP during a conference call on March 28. The […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., has extracted more than 3,000 tons of salt since Jan. 15 when it resumed its underground mining operations, a spokesman for site prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said Friday. NWP spokesman Donavan Mager cited the figure during in a phone call and email exchange […]

The aftermath of the February 2014 radiation release that closed the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for almost three years is the common thread between two recent developments at the nation’s only underground repository for transuranic waste. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments through April 19 on whether to […]

Former Waste Control Specialists President and CEO Rod Baltzer has opened a new consulting firm, and is not straying far from his specialty in low-level radioactive waste disposal. “I haven’t Tweeted in a while, but wanted you to know I have started a consulting firm since leaving WCS,” Baltzer said in a March 2 message […]

During the first month-and-a-half of operations in 2018, the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 30 shipments of transuranic waste, with two-thirds of them coming from the Idaho National Laboratory. That comes out to an average of almost five shipments per week over a six-week period. In addition to 20 shipments […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments through April 19 on whether to sign off on the updated transuranic waste characterization program at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project. An affirmative decision could lead to AMWTP shipping TRU waste to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Energy […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has improved its emergency planning and preparation, but work remains to correct shortcomings identified in a 2016 report, according to new findings from DOE’s internal watchdog. The Office of Emergency Management Assessments, within the department’s independent Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA), studied WIPP emergency […]

BWX Technologies President and CEO Rex Geveden sounded confident Wednesday that a partnership led by his company will retain a 10-year contract for liquid waste management at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina – even after the Government Accountability Office upheld a competitors’ protest against the deal. In a redacted version of […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has improved its emergency planning and preparation, but work remains to correct shortcomings identified in a 2016 report, according to a newly released report from DOE’s internal watchdog. The Office of Emergency Management Assessments, within the department’s independent Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA), studied […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico would get a funding spike to $403 million in the Trump administration fiscal 2019 budget request, which envisions the underground disposal site taking 10 shipments weekly. The budget proposal for the Carlsbad Field Office would be $79 million over the 2017 enacted level of spending […]

South Carolina stakeholders for the Savannah River Site denounced Monday a potential plan to process 34 metric tons of plutonium and ship it to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., for permanent storage. That “dilute and dispose” option is the Department of Energy’s preferred approach for eliminating the plutonium, rather than continuing forward with construction and […]

The U.S. Department of Energy has as of Tuesday incurred $3.2 million in fines from the state of Idaho for failure to successfully start operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory. The federal agency has paid part of that amount, primarily through environmental cleanup projects in the state, but the […]

South Carolina stakeholders for the Savannah River Site denounced Monday a potential plan to process 34 metric tons of plutonium and ship it to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., for permanent storage. That “dilute and dispose” option is the Department of Energy’s preferred approach for eliminating the plutonium, rather than continuing forward with construction and […]

The Energy Department expects in April to file a permit application for storage of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste at its Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup in upstate New York. A total of 22 containers are expected to hold waste generated by ongoing environmental remediation at the site, according to a recent DOE notice. […]

The Energy Department is at risk of missing the 2018 deadline to ship all transuranic waste at the Idaho National Laboratory out of the state, a senior official said recently. That comes even as the agency has increased its pace of shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for permanent disposal, Energy […]

South Carolina stakeholders for the Savannah River Site denounced Monday a potential plan to process 34 metric tons of plutonium and ship it to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., for permanent storage. That “dilute and dispose” option is the Department of Energy’s preferred approach for dealing with the plutonium, rather than continuing forward with construction […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico would get a funding spike to $403 million in the Trump administration fiscal 2019 budget request released Monday. That would be $79 million over the 2017 enacted level of spending and $99 million more than WIPP’s annualized spending under a series of short-term budgets passed […]

A pair of public meetings have been scheduled in March on proposed changes in the New Mexico hazardous waste facility permit for the U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The meetings, scheduled in Carlsbad and Santa Fe, will focus on clarifying transuranic “Mixed Waste Disposal Volume Reporting,” according to a recent notice posted online […]

Department of Energy contractor AECOM on Tuesday reported $4.9 billion in revenue for the first quarter of its fiscal year, ended Dec. 31, 2017. That was 12.7 percent higher than the $4.35 billion recorded in the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2016. The Los Angeles-based global infrastructure company reported quarterly net income and diluted earnings per […]