High-Level & Tank Waste

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. […]

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 […]

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 it could not meet the project’s previously set milestones. The agency built two waste barriers the size of football fields or larger in 2007 and 2010. Under […]

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 […]

Personnel working in a Hanford Site tank farm pit were contaminated with material associated with radioactive waste Tuesday morning. Six workers received specks of radioactive contamination on their skin, despite wearing protective clothing. Two additional workers were found to have contamination on their privacy clothing after their protective gear was removed. Specks of radioactive contamination […]

Personnel working in a Hanford Site tank farm pit were contaminated with material associated with radioactive waste Tuesday morning. Initial reports were that at least seven workers had low levels of contamination on their skin, despite wearing protective clothing. Additional tests are being done as a precaution to ensure the workers do not have internal […]

With the 2016 fiscal year in the rearview mirror, Bechtel National is looking ahead to finishing this fall a key gas-treatment system needed to start liquid-waste cleanup at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site as soon as 2022. Bechtel is designing a system dubbed Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) to take the less viscous, less radioactive […]

A 30-million-gallon reservoir for decontaminated salt waste at the Savannah River Site will be ready about seven months later than expected, but still much sooner than the Energy Department is expected to need it, a project manager with the site’s liquid waste contractor said Monday. The massive tank will be ready in May 2017, Jon […]

AECOM, BWX Technologies, and Fluor Corp. all bid on a 10-year liquid waste management contract at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., that could be worth $4 billion to $6 billion, sources told Weapons Complex Monitor. The Energy Department would not authorize anyone to comment on the record for this story. […]

A 30-million-gallon reservoir for decontaminated salt waste at the Savannah River Site will be ready about seven months later than expected, but still much sooner than the Energy Department is expected to need it, a project manager with the site’s liquid waste  contractor said Monday. The massive tank will be ready in May 2017, Jon Lunn, […]

The electrical utility building that eventually will feed power to crucial liquid waste treatment systems at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., has been tied to its permanent electrical power source in what contractor Bechtel National said in a Thursday press release is “an important step toward operations.” Though announced Thursday, Building 87, […]

Possible actions to protect Hanford Site workers from chemical vapors could result in missed milestones under the Department of Energy consent decree mandate with Washington state for emptying single-shell waste storage tanks, according to a preliminary report. Kevin Smith, manager of DOE’s Office of River Protection, said in a status update last week he was […]

Washington River Protection Solutions has emptied the 15th of 16 waste tanks in the Hanford Site’s C Tank Farm to regulatory standards. A court-enforced consent decree deadline requires the last of the C Farm tanks to be emptied to regulatory standards by March 2024. Tank C-111 is also the 16th of Hanford’s 149 leak-prone single-shell […]

Possible actions to protect Hanford Site workers from chemical vapors could lead to missed milestones under the Department of Energy consent decree with Washington state for emptying single-shell waste storage tanks, according to a preliminary report. Kevin Smith, the manager of the Department of Energy Office of River Protection, said he was notifying the Washington […]

A permit that will allow Energy Department contractor Bechtel National to build a facility crucial to starting solidification of Cold War-era waste in Washington state by 2022 goes out for public comment next month, the state Ecology Department announced. “Ecology plans to start a 30-day public comment period in middle October on a proposed new […]

Salt waste processing at the Savannah River Site is expected to increase now that one of the Department of Energy facility’s new salt solution receipt tanks (SSRT) has begun receiving waste. Earlier this month, liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) began transferring decontaminated salt solution (DSS) to the tank, which can hold up to […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Energy Department and one of its contractors have carefully insulated a critical liquid waste treatment system in Washington state from an impending stopgap spending measure that will freeze federal budgets at the current fiscal 2016 level, an official with Washington River Protection Solutions said Wednesday. Congress, following Senate Majority Leader Sen. […]

The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste cleanup program should be on an expedited path for completion, according to a recommendation to be considered later this month by the site’s Citizens Advisory Board (CAB). In August, the CAB’s waste management committee approved a recommendation to provide adequate funding to expedite liquid waste processing, sending the vote to the full […]

In Washington state, there remains enough radioactive and chemical waste that, if stacked above a standard U.S. football field, would rise some 15 stories high. A massive, DOE-led environmental remediation project is now underway to clean up the contaminated soil and demolish the original source of waste at the Hanford Site along the Columbia River […]

A permit that will allow Energy Department contractor Bechtel National to build a facility crucial to starting solidification of Cold War-era waste in Washington state by 2022 goes out for public comment next month, the state Ecology Department announced late last week. “Ecology plans to start a 30-day public comment period in middle October on […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) has joined the Department of Energy’s motion requesting dismissal of Washington state’s lawsuit seeking better chemical vapor protection for workers at the Hanford Site. DOE and its tank farm contractor both argue the state has no legal standing to file the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, but […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) has joined the Department of Energy’s motion requesting dismissal of Washington state’s lawsuit seeking better chemical vapor protection for workers at the Hanford Site. DOE and its tank farm contractor both argue the state has no legal standing to file the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, but […]

The Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council (HAMTC) and the Hanford Site’s tank farm contractor have signed a memorandum of understanding to lift the stop work order halting any work in the waste storage areas unless workers are using supplied air respirator. The parties signed the agreement, which requires certain conditions be met, on Wednesday. No […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has begun making space to temporarily store even more canisters of vitrified radioactive waste in Glass Waste Storage Building 1 (GWSB 1) by double-stacking the canisters on top of each other, according to update issued Thursday. Double-stacking formally started on Aug. 25, the Department of Energy facility said. […]

Congress returns to Washington after Labor Day to the legislative morass that entangled the Energy Department’s fiscal 2017 budget before lawmakers stormed out of town in mid-July for their traditional summer recess, again raising the possibility of a stopgap spending bill that freezes the agency’s legacy waste-cleanup funding at the 2016 level of roughly $6.2 billion. While that […]

It was pencils down Tuesday for aspirant Energy Department contractors bidding on a 10-year liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., that could be worth $4 billion to $6 billion, including an option. AECOM, lead on the Savannah River Remediation (SRR) consortium in charge of the work today under an eight-year, $4.1 billion […]

It’s pencils down today for aspirant Energy Department contractors bidding on a 10-year liquid waste cleanup contract at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., that could be worth $4 billion to $6 billion, including an option. AECOM, lead on the Savannah River Remediation (SRR) consortium in charge of the work today under an eight-year, $4.1 billion […]

A pair of steel canisters that were not perfectly sealed after they were filled with glass-immobilized waste have been tucked away at the Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility Glass Waste Storage Building, according to a report posted online recently by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. As of Aug. 18, the canisters remained […]

Bechtel National is more than halfway finished designing a facility crucial to starting a long-delayed cleanup of liquid radioactive waste in Washington state by 2022, but the company and the Energy Department are still haggling over the contract changes needed to actually build the facility, agency and industry representatives said Tuesday. That is according to […]

After a half-decade pause, the Savannah River Site on Aug. 5 resumed first cycle unit work for its H Canyon spent nuclear fuel (SNF) operations. This comes after the site restarted another key part, the second uranium cycle, in February using test reactor fuel rods. Heralded as the nation’s only chemical separation facility still in […]