As part of the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management’s West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) in upstate New York, high-level waste has been placed in long-term outdoor storage for the first time, EM announced on Tuesday. The agency is working with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and project contractor CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley LLC to relocate 55 tanks from the site’s Main Plant Process Building to an “interim storage pad” by the end of 2018, according to an EM press release. This is to make way for the subsequent demolition of that structure. All of the liquid waste was vitrified by 2002, the release states.
“I could not be more proud of this team,” EM WVDP Director Bryan Bower said in a statement. “This effort is a culmination of four years’ work to begin the safe removal of the high-level waste canisters from the former reprocessing facility, allowing for the eventual demolition of the building.”
West Valley once served as the first and only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the U.S. It sits about 35 miles south of Buffalo.
“The workers have dedicated the past four years working tirelessly to plan, construct, train, and operate the specialized equipment to perform this important work,” David Brown, CHBWV project manager for the HLW project, said in a statement. “This project is called the West Valley Demonstration Project, and once again this workforce demonstrated a first-of-its-kind operation.”
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