Transuranic Waste

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., anticipates receiving about 300 shipments during the 12 months from February 2018 and February 2019. That’s according to slides shared by Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader at the Waste Management Symposium last month in Phoenix, Ariz. During this period, DOE and WIPP management […]

The management and operations contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant  (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., is reviewing bid proposals from companies hoping to build a new permanent underground ventilation system for deep-underground disposal site. Bid proposals were received March 21 and are now under review, Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) spokesperson Donavan Mager said […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 64 shipments of transuranic waste from Jan. 1 through March 21, 2018, according to the latest publicly available data. Of the shipments received by March 21, 48 came from the Idaho National Laboratory. The remaining 16 were split evenly between the Oak Ridge National […]

Interim storage of transuranic waste at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup project in upstate New York will not be affected by a cost dispute between the U.S. Energy Department and its contractor, AECOM subsidiary URS. “Transuranic waste treatment, packaging, certification is the responsibility of DOE and is not part of the contract cost […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is taking steps to address a recent series of errors in waste handling that earned it a state penalty, and to keep them from recurring, a spokesman said Wednesday. Among other measures, LANL voluntarily suspended all waste shipments from Dec. 18 through Feb. 28, while it investigated […]

Phil Breidenbach, former president and project manager for the contractor that manages the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, has been named chief engineer for the current liquid waste manager at DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Breidenbach is a vice president at AECOM, lead partner at Savannah River Remediation, along […]

Phil Breidenbach, former president and project manager for the contractor that manages the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, has been named chief engineer for the current liquid waste manager at DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Breidenbach is a vice president at AECOM, lead partner at Savannah River Remediation, along […]

Interim storage of transuranic waste at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup project in upstate New York will not be affected by a cost dispute between the U.S. Energy Department and its contractor, AECOM subsidiary URS. “Transuranic waste treatment, packaging, certification is the responsibility of DOE and is not part of the contract cost […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 60 shipments of transuranic waste in just over the first two-and-a-half months of 2018, according to the latest publicly available data. Of the shipments received by March 18, 44 came from the Idaho National Laboratory. The remaining 16 were split evenly between the Oak […]

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) plans to penalize the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory for mishandling certain waste earlier this year, a move that could entail a $10,000 daily fine for each instance of noncompliance. “Los Alamos National Laboratory self-reported a violation earlier this year, which involved five stored hazardous waste containers […]

The U.S. Energy Department is prioritizing installing a new permanent ventilation system and replacing aging infrastructure at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico, according to the newly released fiscal 2019 budget justification document for the Office of Environmental Management. The $403 million WIPP budget request for the budget year starting Oct. 1 […]

It could take some time for the Energy Department to decide how to handle 113 drums of inappropriately remediated nitrate salts stored at a privately operated disposal site in Texas, a senior DOE official said last week. The waste originated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which as of this month has […]

The U.S. Energy Department is prioritizing installing a new permanent ventilation system and replacing aging infrastructure at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico, according to the newly released fiscal 2019 budget justification document for the Office of Environmental Management. The WIPP budget request for the budget year starting Oct. 1 includes $84 […]

The fiscal 2018 omnibus budget bill signed by President Donald Trump on Friday would provide $7.1 billion for Department of Energy’s environmental management activities, $706 million above the $6.4 billion fiscal 2017 enacted level. That amounts to roughly an 11-percent increase on a year-over-year basis. Congress by early Friday approved the $1.3 trillion budget that […]

PHOENIX, Ariz. — During 2017, its first year of operation following a nearly three-year shutdown, the Energy Department Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico resumed disposing of transuranic waste, tightened its vetting of incoming shipments, and resumed salt mining, officials said this week. The nation’s only underground repository for TRU waste, which is overseen […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, this morning will kick off the plenary session for the 2018 Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Ariz. Fleischmann, whose district includes the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation, will speak this morning at the Phoenix Convention Center alongside Billy Morrison, CEO of Veolia Nuclear […]

The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into vitrified glass by the end of 2021, in advance of a legal deadline, the highest-ranking official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant energy secretary for environmental management, […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board is preparing to issue a recommendation on the future of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), sources said this week. The Energy Department advisory board will hear public input on potential future uses for the AMWTP during a conference call on March 28. The […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board is preparing to issue a recommendation on the future of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), sources said this week. The Energy Department advisory board will hear public input on potential future uses for the AMWTP during a conference call on March 28. The […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., has extracted more than 3,000 tons of salt since Jan. 15 when it resumed its underground mining operations, a spokesman for site prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said Friday. NWP spokesman Donavan Mager cited the figure during in a phone call and email exchange […]

The aftermath of the February 2014 radiation release that closed the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for almost three years is the common thread between two recent developments at the nation’s only underground repository for transuranic waste. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments through April 19 on whether to […]

Former Waste Control Specialists President and CEO Rod Baltzer has opened a new consulting firm, and is not straying far from his specialty in low-level radioactive waste disposal. “I haven’t Tweeted in a while, but wanted you to know I have started a consulting firm since leaving WCS,” Baltzer said in a March 2 message […]

During the first month-and-a-half of operations in 2018, the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 30 shipments of transuranic waste, with two-thirds of them coming from the Idaho National Laboratory. That comes out to an average of almost five shipments per week over a six-week period. In addition to 20 shipments […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments through April 19 on whether to sign off on the updated transuranic waste characterization program at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project. An affirmative decision could lead to AMWTP shipping TRU waste to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Energy […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has improved its emergency planning and preparation, but work remains to correct shortcomings identified in a 2016 report, according to new findings from DOE’s internal watchdog. The Office of Emergency Management Assessments, within the department’s independent Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA), studied WIPP emergency […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office has two new assistant managers to help conduct its oversight of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. WIPP is the nation’s only underground repository for disposal of transuranic waste from across the Department of Energy complex. James (Ed) Garza has been named assistant manager for […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has improved its emergency planning and preparation, but work remains to correct shortcomings identified in a 2016 report, according to a newly released report from DOE’s internal watchdog. The Office of Emergency Management Assessments, within the department’s independent Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA), studied […]

The Trump administration is again proposing to increase the budget for the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office, to $6.6 billion for fiscal 2019. That would be $182 million above the fiscal 2017 enacted level and $100 million above the amount proposed for the current budget year for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). Two industry […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico would get a funding spike to $403 million in the Trump administration fiscal 2019 budget request, which envisions the underground disposal site taking 10 shipments weekly. The budget proposal for the Carlsbad Field Office would be $79 million over the 2017 enacted level of spending […]

The U.S. Department of Energy has as of Tuesday incurred $3.2 million in fines from the state of Idaho for failure to successfully start operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory. The federal agency has paid part of that amount, primarily through environmental cleanup projects in the state, but the […]