High-Level & Tank Waste

The Department of Energy has racked up more than $1 million in new penalties from the state of Idaho over the failure to begin operation of a liquid waste treatment facility at the Idaho National Laboratory. The total fines levied against DOE and its current and former contractors on the project now stands at just […]

Money for liquid waste processing and tank closures at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site would tick up if Congress approves funding levels proposed by President Donald Trump for fiscal 2018. All told, the budget proposal would provide $1.28 billion for the DOE facility in South Carolina, according to the detailed version of the budget request […]

The Department of Energy has racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in new penalties from the state of Idaho over the failure to begin operation of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory. The IWTU is intended to process 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste stored in underground tanks at the […]

The Savannah River Site is on pace to restart liquid waste operations “toward the end of the year,” according to a SRS Facebook post that also detailed progress in switching out melters at one of the site’s main waste processing facilities. The update Monday says Melter 3 recently arrived at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), which […]

Bechtel National workers have completed assembling the first melter at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant, the Department of Energy announced Thursday. Completion of the project earned the contractor $4.275 million in incentive pay. The melter is one of two that will be used at the plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, which DOE aims to begin […]

The Savannah River Site is on pace to restart liquid waste operations “toward the end of the year,” according to a SRS Facebook post that also detailed progress in switching out melters at one of the site’s main waste processing facilities. The update Monday says Melter 3 recently arrived at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), which […]

Two Savannah River Remediation workers were contaminated with beta and gamma radiation at the Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility this week, according to an official Department of Energy account of the incident. The incident occurred Wednesday when one employee spilled a sample of liquid waste pulled from an oil drum. The sample splattered […]

A least one liquid waste-related operation is ongoing at the Savannah River Site, despite the temporary halting of liquid waste processing earlier this year. At a Savannah River Site (SRS) Citizens Advisory Board meeting last week, a DOE official said the site is about halfway through its checklist on the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF): […]

Bechtel National earned just over $7 million in fees for its work building the Waste Treatment Plant at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site near Richland Wash.: good for 71 percent of the total available for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2016. DOE grades Bechtel in two major categories: the less-quantifiable project management category, which […]

A least one liquid waste-related operation is ongoing at the Savannah River Site, despite the temporary halting of liquid waste processing earlier this year. At a Savannah River Site (SRS) Citizens Advisory Board meeting last week, a DOE official said the site is about halfway through its checklist on the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF): a plant expected […]

Bechtel National earned just over $7 million in fees for its work building the Waste Treatment Plant at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site near Richland Wash.: good for 71 percent of the total available for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2016. DOE grades Bechtel in two major categories: the less-quantifiable project management category, which […]

The manager in charge of the effort to fix a Savannah River Site evaporator pot that unexpectedly sprung a leak halfway through its 30-year design life is 95-percent sure the vessel will be up and running again by Dec. 31. The 3H Evaporator Pot, which last year leaked some 3,000 gallons of highly radioactive liquid waste, is […]

Radioactive contamination at the Hanford Site’s double-shell Tank AZ-101 does not appear to be from a leak within the tank, the Department of Energy said Wednesday. A leak was considered possible when a robotic crawler pulled out of the annulus, or space between the tank’s two shells, on May 18 was found to be contaminated […]

Radioactive contamination at the Hanford Site’s double-shell Tank AZ-101 does not appear to be from a leak within the tank, the Department of Energy said Wednesday. A leak was considered possible when a robotic crawler pulled out of the annulus, or space between the shells of the tank, on May 18 was found to be […]

Savannah River Remediation expects to save about $10 million by repairing, rather than replacing, a piece of equipment essential for chemical separations operations at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a company executive told a citizens group Monday. The equipment, a nearly 30-foot-high evaporator pot that last year leaked some 3,000 gallons […]

A heavy plastic cover was installed Saturday over the partially collapsed PUREX plant waste tunnel at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Work is expected to continue through Monday to secure the cover’s sides with 150 concrete ecology blocks and to crisscross cable lacings from the blocks across the top of the soil […]

Radioactive contamination discovered Thursday night could be a sign that a second double-shell tank at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state is leaking waste into the space between its shells. A robotic crawler had been inserted down a riser into the space between the shells, or the annulus, of Tank AZ-101 as […]

Hanford Site officials were hoping for little or no wind Friday to they can lay a plastic covering over the entire length of the PUREX plant underground waste tunnel where a breach was discovered on May 9. Weather permitting, workers will stage a heavy piece of industrial plastic beside the soil berm that tops the […]

It will take until 2031 to empty and seal 16 underground waste tanks at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. — 12 years later than the end-date DOE and Washington state set in 2010, the federal agency said late Monday in a regulatory filing. The 16 single-shell tanks to be emptied and closed are in Hanford’s […]

It will take until 2031 to empty and seal 16 underground waste tanks at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. — 12 years later than the end-date DOE and Washington state set in 2010, the federal agency said late Monday in a regulatory filing. The 16 single-shelled tanks to be emptied and closed are in Hanford’s […]

All employees of central Hanford were back at work Monday after an emergency was declared May 9 following the partial collapse of an underground tunnel storing radioactively contaminated equipment near the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant. All but a couple hundred employees had returned to work last Thursday at the Department of Energy facility in Washington […]

The Energy Department on Monday submitted its plans for closing four single-shell liquid-waste tanks at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., the Washington state Department of Ecology confirmed. DOE was once supposed to deliver the closure schedule by March 30, but the state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — the two main regulators […]

The Department of Energy plans to lay a flexible, durable plastic cover over the berm topping a long-term radioactive waste storage tunnel, where a partial roof collapse was discovered last Tuesday. The work will be done this week, weather permitting, and should take only a couple days, Doug Shoop, manager of DOE’s Richland Operations Office […]

The emergency declared Tuesday at the Hanford Site in Washington state when a breach was discovered in one of the underground waste storage tunnels for the Plutonium Uranium Extraction (PUREX) Plant was formally ended after workers finished filling in the hole late Wednesday night. “(The work) was accomplished swiftly and safely to prevent any further […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has implemented a new initiative aimed at streamlining spent fuel operations and cutting costs in the process. Workers with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the site’s management and operations provider, are making better use of the transfer bay in L Area, according to the latest […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology took legal action against the Department of Energy Wednesday evening over the collapse of part of a nuclear waste tunnel discovered at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Uranium Extraction (PUREX) Plant the day before. As a Hanford regulator, the state agency issued an enforcement order requiring assessments, reports, and submission […]

Authorities declared an emergency for most of the day at the Hanford Site in Washington state after the roof of one waste disposal tunnel was discovered to be breached. No airborne contamination was detected and no workers were injured, but radiation monitoring was continuing Tuesday evening, according to the Department of Energy. Workers in the […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site has newly implemented an initiative aimed at streamlining spent fuel operations and cut costs in the process. Workers with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the site’s management and operations provider, are making better use of the transfer bay in L Area, according to the latest edition of SRNS Today, a […]

Liquid waste workers are filling another of the Savannah River Site’s disposal units with decontaminated salt solution. Savannah River Remediation (SRR), the liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy site in South Carolina, is filling Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) 3A, according to a Facebook post Tuesday. Work began in February. SDUs are cylindrical concrete […]

  Plaintiffs and defendants met with a mediator for a first session Thursday to attempt to resolve a lawsuit demanding better protection for Hanford Site workers exposed to chemical vapors from waste tanks, according to Hanford tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS). The session, held in Seattle, was expected to continue today. Washington […]