Cleanup & Remediation

The official Facebook for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management has hit 1,000 likes. “Thank you to everyone who ‘likes’ EM’s national Facebook page,” the agency’s nuclear cleanup branch said on the social media site. “We recently surpassed 1,000 likes since launching our page in late May this year. We will continue to share progress […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has determined it has jurisdiction over the Mixed Waste Landfill at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, but will forgo oversight of the facility, DNFSB Chairman Joyce Connery said in an Oct. 27 letter to a nongovernmental watchdog organization. The closed landfill covers 2.6 acres at the Department of […]

Washington state is still waiting for Energy Department contractor Washington River Protection Solutions to show its work on an estimate that equipping workers with respirators and other gear to protect them from vapors at the Hanford Site’s waste storage tank farms would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and add years to the site’s cleanup schedule. […]

Plutonium metal operations at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site resumed last month, following a yearlong suspension that started with a safety pause induced in September 2015 by facility management and operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS). Plutonium metal operations, in which plutonium is repackaged from its original storage container in K Area, to […]

Nuclear waste and the billions of dollars the Energy Department spends each year to clean it up do not go away after a presidential campaign — even a grinding, vitriolic campaign like the one Donald Trump won Tuesday —and nobody knows it better than business. As common after an election as calls for unity from the president-elect […]

After agreeing last month to delay shipments of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Canada to the Savannah River Site at least until Feb. 17, 2017, the Department of Energy is now asking a federal judge for summary judgment in a lawsuit in which antinuclear organizations are requesting more information on the transfers. The DOE facility, […]

The official Facebook for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management hit 1,000 likes Friday. “Thank you to everyone who ‘likes’ EM’s national Facebook page,” the agency’s nuclear cleanup branch said on the social media site. “We recently surpassed 1,000 likes since launching our page in late May this year. We will continue to share progress […]

After agreeing last month to delay shipments of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Canada to the Savannah River Site at least until Feb. 17, 2017, the Department of Energy is now asking a federal judge for a summary judgment in a lawsuit in which multiple antinuclear groups are requesting more information on the transfers. SRS, located […]

Washington state is still waiting for Energy Department contractor Washington River Protection Solutions to show its work on an estimate that equipping workers with respirators and other gear to protect them from vapors at the Hanford Site’s waste storage tank farms would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and add years to the site’s cleanup schedule. […]

Hanford Site cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. has sealed a subcontract for construction of storage containers to hold cesium and strontium capsules. Georgia-based nuclear materials services provider NAC International has received a $23 million contract to design and build 16 dry storage casks that will hold 1,936 highly radioactive cesium and strontium capsules now […]

Sellafield Ltd. has complied with an improvement notice from 2015, stemming from safety shortfalls related to operating instructions at the Magnox Reprocessing Separation Plant, the U.K. Office for Nuclear Regulation announced Friday. The announcement did not provide specific details, other than to say that there were a number of issues related to following operating instructions […]

Washington state will remain a plaintiff in a lawsuit it brought against the Department of Energy and its Hanford Site waste storage tank farm contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), demanding better protection from chemical vapors for Hanford workers. On Thursday, Judge Thomas Rice ruled in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington against a motion […]

The Department of Energy has been given three more years to meet milestones for building additional caps over contaminated soil in Hanford tank farms after it became apparent the agency could not meet the project’s previously set deadlines. DOE built two waste barriers the size of football fields or larger in 2007 and 2010. Under […]

Savannah River Site Watch got the green light from Grammy Award winner Bonnie Raitt to lobby outside of her Oct. 28 concert in North Charleston, where the group collected signatures in opposition to bringing more nuclear materials to South Carolina. “Bonnie follows these nuclear waste issues and she’s very supportive of our work,” said SRS […]

The Fluor Corp. segment that handles nuclear cleanup work for the U.S. Energy Department reported a dip in profits for the third quarter of 2016, while the construction and energy giant overall took a massive earnings hit due to a charge on a petrochemical facility that has nothing to do with the company’s DOE nuclear business. […]

Energy Department contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. on Tuesday began demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash., beginning with the south canyon airlocks of the plant’s Plutonium Reclamation Facility. Demolition had been slated to start Monday but was delayed by high winds. Tuesday was another windy day on the central plateau, but CH2m […]

The Tri-Party Agreement for the Hanford Site in Washington state has been amended to delete the requirement that the Department of Energy submit a 2017 Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule, and Cost Report to its state and federal regulators in January. The department has been required under the Tri-Party Agreement to prepare the report annually as […]

There is still no timetable for starting up the officially delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho Site, but it will need a replacement part — which DOE has in stock — that will take up to three months to install, according to an agency briefing last week. DOE this week […]

Savannah River Site Watch got the green light from Grammy Award winner Bonnie Raitt to lobby outside of her Oct. 28 concert in North Charleston, where the group collected signatures in opposition to bringing more nuclear materials to South Carolina. “Bonnie follows these nuclear waste issues and she’s very supportive of our work,” said SRS […]

The Tri-Party Agreement for the Hanford Site in Washington state has been amended to delete the requirement that the Department of Energy submit a 2017 Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule, and Cost Report to its state and federal regulators in January. The department has been required under the Tri-Party Agreement to prepare the report annually as […]

There is still no timetable for starting up the officially delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho Site, but it will need a replacement part — which DOE has in stock — that will take up to three months to install, according to an agency briefing last week. DOE this week […]

Energy Department contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. on Tuesday began demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash., beginning with the south canyon airlocks of the plant’s Plutonium Reclamation Facility. Demolition had been slated to start Monday but was delayed by high winds. Tuesday was another windy day on the central plateau, but CH2m […]

A new agreement between the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) and the Department of Energy requires the treatment of 36 million gallons of radioactive waste held in Savannah River Site storage tanks by 2022. The agreement, which the two sided signed on Monday, is the first of multiple deals related to waste operations […]

Savannah River Site Watch got the green light from Grammy Award winner Bonnie Raitt to lobby outside of her concert in North Charleston on Friday, where the group collected signatures in opposition to bringing more nuclear materials to South Carolina. “Bonnie follows these nuclear waste issues and she’s very supportive of our work,” said SRS […]

Idaho’s attorney general last week reiterated his stance that no spent nuclear fuel should be sent to the Idaho National Laboratory until the Energy Department begins treating liquid waste using the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), the local Post Register newspaper reported last week. In a Thursday meeting of the DOE-chartered Idaho National Laboratory Citizens Advisory Board, […]

The Washington Ecology Department wants more details about a contractor estimate that requiring workers to wear supplied air respirators at the Hanford Site’s waste storage tank farm could add years and hundreds of millions of dollars to cleanup of the Cold War-era Department of Energy site, according to official correspondence published online Wednesday. Earlier this year, some […]

Fluor Federal Services has installed nine new well monitors to measure the amount of toxic trichloroethene in the groundwater at the Energy Department’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, DOE said. The nine wells will help DOE prepare for future groundwater treatment at the site, which is contaminated by the toxic industrial solvent used to clean equipment […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management unveiled a logo Tuesday morning that promotes a concept the agency calls “One EM.” The minimalist header — featuring a green mountain range and a stylized, flowing river set against the backdrop of an orange, sunswept sky — includes branding similar to the “One EM Team” concept employees of the EM […]

A small cadre of Energy Department Environmental Management personnel based at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Nevada Field Office may soon get their own private office space to insulate them from NNSA personnel at the former nuclear weapons-testing site, according to an internal DOE document. Weapons Complex Monitor obtained a copy of the undated, unsigned draft […]

A small cadre of Energy Department Environmental Management personnel based at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Nevada Field Office may soon get their own private office space to insulate them from NNSA personnel at the former nuclear weapons-testing site, according to an internal DOE document. Weapons Complex Monitor obtained a copy of the undated, unsigned […]