High-Level & Tank Waste

Parsons could end up sacrificing a significant amount of its fee for delays in startup of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a DOE official said Monday. Parsons was expected Monday to submit a new cost and schedule update for the facility, SWPF Federal Project […]

Bechtel National is bringing on a new project director for the Waste Treatment Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, employees were told Friday. Brian Reilly, who joined the project last December, will be replaced by Valerie McCain. Reilly has been reassigned to the position of project director for the Vogtle […]

The Department of Energy Office of Enforcement has issued a final notice of violation to Bechtel National for a Nov. 4, 2016, industrial accident at the Hanford Site in Washington state. A worker sustained broken vertebrae and cuts to the head when a 12-inch pipe unexpectedly separated at a joint and sprayed a pressurized stream […]

The Energy Department could reissue a multibillion-dollar liquid waste management contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina any day now – or it could be weeks away. Two industry sources recently indicated the contract announcement could arrive as soon as today, but a third industry source was more skeptical, saying he had heard […]

The Energy Department could reissue a multibillion-dollar liquid waste management contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina early as Friday, two industry sources said. One source said the new award could land this week or it could arrive as late as October. The Energy Department for its part has said in public presentations […]

HENDERSON, Nev. – Parsons Senior Vice President Frank Sheppard Jr. expressed confidence Thursday the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina will start operation in 2019. “We are going to start up next year,” Sheppard said during a panel presentation on tank waste at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste […]

  AVANTech, which works at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, has named a veteran of nuclear waste cleanup as its senior process engineer for the Hanford Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) Project. The Columbia, S.C.-based water treatment provider, a subcontractor to Hanford waste storage tank farm manager Washington River Protection Solutions, said […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), the waste storage tank farm contractor at the Hanford Site, has named a new president. John Eschenberg, WRPS deputy project manager of waste feed delivery, will succeed Mark Lindholm as president on Oct. 8 after a transition period. Lindholm, WRPS president and project manager since October 2015, sent a message […]

A major infrastructure replacement at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is inching toward completion, though the Department of Energy is hesitant to state when that might occur. The agency first reported in April that Parsons, the contractor that constructed the facility and is preparing it for operations, would need to replace […]

BWX Technologies still hopes its team can win the multibillion-dollar liquid waste management contract for the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, executives said Aug. 7. The Lynchburg, Va., company partnered with Bechtel and Honeywell in Savannah River EcoManagement, which last fall initially won a 10-year, $4.7 billion contract to take over the […]

The Department of Energy’s oversight of contractors building the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state is improving, according a recent review by DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA). In a separate report, the DOE oversight office gave WTP prime contractor Bechtel National a clean review for recent development […]

Most work resumed Monday on the Hanford Site’s SX Tank Farm after a stop-work order was lifted. One or more workers called a halt to work Friday in the radioactive waste storage area out of safety concerns that a hole discovered the day before could impair the integrity of a nearby underground tank. However, a […]

One or more workers called a halt to work at the Hanford Site’s SX Tank Farm on Friday out of concern that an unexplained hole could indicate a problem with the integrity of an underground radioactive waste storage tank about 6 feet away. Personnel at the Department of Energy cleanup site in Washington state can […]

A major infrastructure replacement at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is inching toward completion, though the Department of Energy is hesitant to state when that might occur. The agency first reported in April that Parsons, the contractor that constructed the facility and is preparing it for operations, would need to replace […]

BWX Technologies still hopes its team can win the multibillion-dollar liquid waste management contract for the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, executives said Tuesday. The Lynchburg, Va., company partnered with Bechtel and Honeywell in Savannah River EcoManagement, which last fall initially won a 10-year, $4.7 billion contract to take over the work. […]

The U.S. Department of Energy might reclassify some treated liquid waste from the Savannah River Site, along with equipment used to process the waste, and send the materials to a permanent repository in New Mexico, according to a July 30 letter that accepts a recommendation from the Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) for the South Carolina […]

Hiring has begun for the workers at the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant’s Analytical Laboratory who will support the plant’s commissioning prior to the start of operations by a 2023 federal court deadline. A 3,300-square-foot laboratory has been established at Columbia Basin College (CBC) near Hanford in Pasco, Wash., to help prepare for work at […]

A recent leak of radioactive waste from a storage tank at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina reinforces the need to properly fund the facility’s liquid waste program, local stakeholders said this week. Liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) noticed the leak from Tank 15 in early June and […]

Hiring has begun for the workers at the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant’s Analytical Laboratory who will support the facility’s commissioning prior to the start of operations by a 2023 federal court deadline. A 3,300-square-foot laboratory has been established at Columbia Basin College (CBC) near Hanford in Pasco, Wash., to help prepare for work at […]

The Department of Energy expects in September to again issue a new contract for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a senior procurement official said Tuesday. This will be the department’s second attempt to seal the deal, after the first contract was successfully protested to the Government Accountability Office. “I […]

A contractor at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has finished moving 219,000 gallons of high-level waste from a leaking tank at the H Tank Farm, according to an update filed by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). Savannah River Remediation transferred the waste from Tank 15 to Tank 13, according […]

The Department of Energy should reclassify treated liquid waste stored in glass logs at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. so the material will be eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, N.M., the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) recommended Tuesday. The recommendation, approved in a 19-2 vote, asks the […]

A new project baseline proposal for the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) was recently submitted by Parsons and is currently under review by the U.S. Department of Energy, an agency spokesperson confirmed this week in an email. Parsons submitted the plan last month. The Department of Energy (DOE) spokesperson said SWPF will […]

A sinkhole discovered last month near the 2H Evaporator at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been fixed, a DOE spokesperson said Friday by email. The sinkhole, about 4 feet long, 3 feet wide, and more than 3 feet deep, was discovered in asphalt on the east side of the evaporator […]

A new project baseline proposal for the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) was recently submitted by Parsons and is currently under review by the U.S. Department of Energy, an agency spokesperson confirmed this week in an email. Parsons submitted the plan last month. The Department of Energy (DOE) spokesperson said SWPF will […]

Three more double-shell tanks at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site contain waste with chemistry that puts them them at heightened risk of corrosion, according to a new report from tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions. The report evaluated the waste chemistry of Hanford’s oldest double-shell tank, AY-102, which developed a leak from its […]

The Savannah River Site is on pace to double-stack 358 canisters of treated radioactive liquid waste in this fiscal year, nearly double the 200 canisters stacked in fiscal 2017. All told, the Department of Energy facility near Aiken, S.C., has to date double-stacked 457 canisters of waste in one of its Glass Waste Storage Buildings […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), the Energy Department’s waste tank farm contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, has awarded a subcontract to AVANTech to design and build a pretreatment facility for tank wastes at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). The tank-side cesium removal demonstration project is meant to remove both cesium […]

Three more double-shell tanks at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site contain waste with chemistry that puts them them at heightened risk of corrosion, according to a new report from tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions. The report evaluated the waste chemistry of Hanford’s oldest double-shell tank, AY-102, which developed a leak from its […]

The first of up to two dozen containers of highly radioactive sludge was trucked Monday morning to storage in the center of the Hanford Site in Washington state. Workers have for nine years been preparing for the sludge transfer from underwater containers in the K West Reactor Basin, which is just 400 yards from the […]