Cleanup & Remediation

In response to questions about use of an old reactor facility on the federal government’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, the Department of Energy confirmed that classified activities associated with nonproliferation have been taking place at the ridge-top site. Claire Sinclair, a spokeswoman for the DOE site office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said, “the […]

Uranium enrichment company Centrus Energy, which is closing down its work on the American Centrifuge Plant (ACP) in Piketon, Ohio, said Tuesday it still does not have a contract for the portion of that program that was supposed to continue through September at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Centrus thought it would have that work locked […]

A system used for liquid waste cleanup at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site (SRS) has sprung a leak and, if it cannot be repaired, will take years to replace, according to weekly site reports from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). SRS prime liquid cleanup contractor Savannah River Remediation discovered the leak in […]

Longtime nuclear industry manager Tom Foster on May 16 will become president and project manager of Savannah River Remediation, the prime liquid-waste cleanup contractor at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., the company announced Wednesday. In his new role, Foster will lead liquid waste remediation activities at the site, which involves operating several facilities […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board on Tuesday called on major Energy Department officials and local managers at a formal meeting in Santa Fe, N.M., to answer detailed questions about what they were doing to address a combination of radiological waste and safety problems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The witnesses, who have not […]

A system used for liquid waste cleanup at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site (SRS) has sprung a leak and, if it cannot be repaired, will take years to replace, according to weekly site reports from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). SRS prime cleanup contractor Savannah River Remediation discovered the leak in the 3H Evaporator […]

For those planning to attend Tuesday’s public hearing of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) to protest — rather than discuss — nuclear waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), good news: official DNFSB guidelines for the event permit both costumes and signs, albeit in moderation. The five-member DNFSB will meet in Santa […]

The month of March marks the 20th anniversary of turning high-level liquid radioactive waste into more safely storable glass tubes at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., the agency said Monday. The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), a vitrification plant that mixes liquid waste with molten glass, started piping in waste on March […]

While the Energy Department had reservations about allowing a Washington state employee to act as a court adviser in a recently decided federal case over cleanup deadlines at the Hanford Site, the agency said it has not prevented that adviser’s court-ordered payment. That is according to a March 16 filing in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, […]

Registration for popular site-wide Hanford tours focusing on environmental cleanup opens at 9 a.m. April 5 at www.hanford.gov. This year only 15 tours are being offered, after a stop at B Reactor was removed from the tour now that the reactor is part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Separate tours of the reactor […]

Carnegie Mellon University will offer graduate-level robotics training focused on nuclear waste-handling and disposal jobs, under a new five-year cooperative agreement with the Energy Department worth up to $3 million. The money will provide a fellowship-like training program for up to 20 doctorate- and masters-level robotics students at the Pittsburgh university’s Robotics Institute, plus money […]

A study prepared for the CB&I AREVA MOX Services Board of Governors states that switching from the MOX method of plutonium disposition to a downblending approach could result in a nuclear chain reaction. But the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said a criticality incident cannot result from storing downblended plutonium, and that the study isn’t […]

A study prepared for the CB&I AREVA MOX Services Board of Governors states that switching from the MOX method of plutonium disposition to a downblending approach could result in a nuclear chain reaction. But the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said a criticality incident cannot result from storing downblended plutonium, and that the study isn’t […]

As the Department of Energy’s motivated cleanup team tries to stabilize some of the worst problems within excess facilities at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, a focal point appears to be the Alpha-4 facility located inside the high-security “Protected Area” of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. Besides dealing with a basement loaded full of […]

In The Industry Wastren-EnergX Mission Support netted a $1.4 million award fee from the Energy Department in 2015 for supporting ongoing uranium enrichment cleanup at DOE’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, the company said March 17. Wastren-EnergX Mission Support’s latest award amounts to 98 percent of the available award for 2015 on the five-year, $42 […]

A federal judge has set new consent decree milestones for tank waste management and treatment at the Hanford Site in Washington state, extending the deadline to have the Waste Treatment Plant fully operating by 14 years to 2036. The order also sets milestones for emptying waste from the 11 storage tanks under the consent decree […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board will hold a public hearing in Santa Fe on Tuesday, March 22, to collect information on hazards related to transuranic waste stored at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The board has also expressed interest in the Department of Energy’s activities and plans for minimizing those hazards. Many waste […]

As the Department of Energy’s motivated cleanup team tries to stabilize some of the worst of the worst situations at excess facilities at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, a focal point appears to be the Alpha-4 facility located inside the high-security “Protected Area” of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. Besides dealing with a basement […]

In a court document released March 11, a federal judge scolded the Energy Department for trying to drag out a long-running lawsuit brought to settle cleanup deadlines for 56 million gallons of radioactive waste buried at a former plutonium production facility in Richland, Wash. The document was one of several released late last week after […]

The Energy Department is preparing a procurement road map for replacing tens of billions of dollars’ worth of expiring cleanup contracts at the former Hanford Site plutonium production plant near Richland, Wash., and should release at least part of that plan later this year, a DOE official said Wednesday. A summary of this “Joint Master Acquisition Plan” […]

A new study prepared for the CB&I AREVA MOX Services Board of Governors states that switching from the MOX method of plutonium disposition to a downblending approach could result in a nuclear chain reaction. But the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said a criticality incident cannot result from storing downblended plutonium, and that the finding isn’t […]

The Hanford Site whistleblower case of Walt Ford will be heard this week after Bechtel National objected to the July 30 findings of a Department of Labor investigation. A Benton County courtroom has been reserved for the hearing from Tuesday to Friday. Ford was laid off at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant in November 2011 […]

In a court document released Friday, a federal judge scolded the Energy Department for trying to drag out a long-running lawsuit brought to settle cleanup deadlines for 56 million gallons of radioactive waste buried at a former plutonium production facility in Richland, Wash. The document was one of several released late Friday after Judge Rosanna […]

A federal judge has set new consent decree milestones for tank waste management and treatment at the Hanford Site, extending the deadline to have the Waste Treatment Plant fully operating by 14 years to 2036. The order also sets milestones for emptying waste from the 11 tanks under the consent decree that still hold waste […]

The overwhelming number of excess facilities awaiting cleanup at Department of Energy facilities has been identified as one of the agency’s biggest challenges and concerns, and DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management is using $28 million – a special fund enabled by a congressional plus-up for fiscal 2016 – to reduce risks and stabilize […]

PHOENIX — The operator of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina intends by the end of March to fully resume normal operations following a September 2015 safety incident that led the contractor to order a nearly company-wide suspension of work that lasted for two months. As work resumed in November, Savannah […]

The overwhelming number of excess facilities awaiting cleanup at Department of Energy facilities has been identified as one of the agency’s biggest challenges and concerns, and DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management is using $28 million – a special fund enabled by a congressional plus-up for fiscal 2016 – to reduce risks and stabilize […]

The Energy Department said Friday it has finished upgrading a facility that cleans up off-site contaminated groundwater at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Paducah, Ky. “Equipment at the C-612 Northwest Pump-and-Treat Facility that had reached the end of its service life or no longer had available replacement parts was replaced with newer equipment […]

Longstanding efforts to reduce the cost and time of cleaning up nuclear waste at the Savannah River Site and around the entire Environmental Management (EM) complex will require mature technology, according to SRS contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) and other Energy Department personnel. During a budget forum on March 3 near Aiken, S.C., a […]

PHOENIX — The Energy Department plans to release a draft solicitation for Savannah River Site liquid cleanup work worth between $1 billion and $3 billion by March 31, a senior DOE procurement official said here Wednesday. It is the first, and one of the largest, of several weapons complex cleanup solicitations and awards set for […]