Transuranic Waste

Twenty-six containers of transuranic waste shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for disposal years ago might not be buried there until 2018, the Energy Department disclosed Friday in a regulatory filing. Hundreds of containers of transuranic waste — radioactively contaminated material and equipment produced by Cold War nuclear weapons programs — were marooned above […]

Bruce Covert has officially taken over as president and project manager of Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP), the prime contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, DOE announced Monday. Covert replaces Philip Breidenbach, who oversaw the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s (WIPP) recovery since 2015 and will return to one of NWP’s […]

CAST Specialty Transportation will haul transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant over the next five years under a potentially $112 million contract announced by the Energy Department Thursday. Under the deal, an indefinite-quantity, indefinite-delivery contract using firm fixed-price task orders, CAST “will provide facilities, personnel, and equipment to operate a local terminal within […]

Fluor Idaho sent an improperly sealed container of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant last month, but inspectors at that New Mexico disposal facility caught the mistake, according to a public notice from the Energy Department. The waste, shipped to WIPP May 10 in a TRUPACT-II container that can hold around 1.5 cubic […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) this week told the head of the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management that President Donald Trump did not propose a large enough 2018 budget for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). WIPP, the nation’s only deep-underground disposal facility for the radioactively contaminated material and equipment known as transuranic waste, would […]

The Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal sustains its predecessor’s plan to terminate the Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s $13.9 billion budget proposal includes $1.8 billion for the defense nuclear nonproliferation account, of which $279 million would go toward nonproliferation construction – a […]

The Energy Department shipped about two shipments a week of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in April, meeting the throughput target the agency set for itself in the mine’s first month of relatively normal operations in three years. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), near Carlsbad, N.M., reopened in January after a […]

The Energy Department shipped about two shipments a week of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in April, meeting the throughput target the agency set for itself in the mine’s first month of relatively normal operations in three years. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), near Carlsbad, N.M., reopened in January after a […]

Workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on Wednesday morning sent the first barrel of potentially explosive nitrate-salt waste to the building where it will be cleaned up and prepared for eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a source in New Mexico said. Stephen Hoffman, deputy manager of the agency’s Environmental Management Los […]

The Energy Department said its effort to clean up potentially explosive transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico was slowed again last week after the site’s contractor discovered a possible crack in a machine vital to the project. On May 8, workers at the lab’s Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility […]

Nuclear Waste Partnership President Phil Breidenbach is set to depart after two years of shepherding the company’s drive to reopen the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and the Energy Department is sending him away with a final set of good marks in the contractor's latest annual review. Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) nabbed $11.3 million in award […]

The management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico earned $11.3 million in award fees for fiscal 2016 – 84 percent of the total available $13.5 million. The majority of the money awarded to Nuclear Waste Partnership — $8.6 million out of a possible $10.1 million – […]

The Energy Department has relaunched a database that lets the public see what kind of nuclear waste the agency is burying at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, and when. The Waste Data System/WIPP Waste Information System went live again recently without any formal announcement by DOE. The system allows the public […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico has taken delivery of some transuranic waste generated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and formerly stored at the privately operated Waste Control Specialists disposal site near Andrews, Texas, sources in New Mexico said. WIPP took delivery of the waste last week. The sources did not quantify […]

Bruce Covert has been appointed president of Nuclear Waste Partnership, the prime contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, one of the contractor’s parent companies, AECOM, said Thursday. Covert will take over June 10. A nuclear-industry veteran, Covert was most recently AECOM group vice president and project director for waste […]

In a paperwork milestone that speeds but does not clear the way to start treating a potentially explosive stream of transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico will allow the Energy Department to use a forklift as part of the agency’s planned treatment regimen. The state approved forklift use and other elements of […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) would wind up with an annualized budget of $6.4 billion for fiscal 2017, about 3 percent more than last year, if an omnibus spending bill unveiled Monday becomes law. The proposed budget, which is expected to pass Congress, gives the Environmental Management office about 5 percent more, […]

The Energy Department and its contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory might not clean up the stream of waste that leaked radiation into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant three years ago until May due to lingering concerns about the facility in which the waste will be treated. The local Santa Fe New Mexican, citing a […]

The Energy Department on Wednesday had planned to start treating the troublesome stream of transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that leaked radiation into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant three years ago, but the day came and went without any confirmation that DOE and its contractor had begun the work. An agency spokesperson […]

Transuranic waste from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has landed at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., for the first time in more than three years. The material – clothing, tools, rags, residues, debris, and other material contaminated with trace amounts of plutonium – arrived last week for permanent disposal at […]

For the first time in three years, the Energy Department has sent shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico for permanent disposal. Shipments from separate DOE facilities either arrived at WIPP or departed for it this week. One shipment arrived early Monday from the Idaho National Laboratory, while another […]

Waste Control Specialists will retain custody of transuranic waste generated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory under a recently extended contract with Nuclear Waste Partnership: the Energy Department’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. A DOE spokesperson confirmed the contract status Wednesday, but the agency declined to discuss the terms of […]

For the first time in more than three years, the Energy Department sent a shipment of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico for permanent disposal, the agency announced Monday. The shipment, from the Idaho National Laboratory, arrived in either the darkness of night or early morning, according to a […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could next week accept its first shipment of transuranic waste from an Energy Department nuclear cleanup site in more than three years, a source in New Mexico said this week. DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office projected in January that WIPP would begin taking in new shipments this month, though the agency […]

Months before a state regulatory deadline, the Energy Department and its prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have stopped using emergency above-ground waste storage space at the mine, according to a Monday regulatory filing. “On February 9, 2017, [DOE and Nuclear Waste Partnership] reconfigured the TRU [transuranic] mixed waste in storage in the […]

Months before a state regulatory deadline, the Energy Department and its prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have stopped using emergency above-ground waste storage space at the mine, according to a Monday regulatory filing. “On February 9, 2017, [DOE and Nuclear Waste Partnership] reconfigured the TRU [transuranic] mixed waste in storage in the Waste […]

The Environmental Protection Agency could clear the Energy Department to keep disposing of transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant by mid-July, according to a recent regulatory filing. Every five years, under the federal law that created the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), EPA must recertify that DOE is complying with the environmental laws governing […]

The Energy Department and contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership have now buried most of the radioactive waste that was stranded above ground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant three years ago, clearing out much-needed storage space for waste shipments slated to arrive from other DOE sites next month. Since the department and its WIPP prime resumed waste […]

The Environmental Protection Agency could clear the Energy Department to keep disposing of transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant by mid-July, according to a recent regulatory filing. Every five years, under the federal law that created the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), EPA must recertify that DOE is complying with the environmental laws governing […]

The Energy Department and Nuclear Waste Partnership on Thursday will host the next Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) town hall meeting in Carlsbad, N.M., only a week after the agency provided more details about which sites will be first to ship transuranic waste to the deep-underground disposal facility. The webcast meeting is slated to begin at […]