Vol. 27, No. 47 
Protective Gear Doubles Cost of Hanford Tank Cleanup, Contractor Says
-
Transuranic Waste
DOE Set to Brief Public on WIPP Review Results Next Week
The Energy Department’s final review of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s recovery effort uncovered 21 punch-list items the agency’s Carlsbad Field Office and contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership must address before the mine can reopen after its nearly three-year pause. In addition to those 21 so-called corrective actions, DOE prescribed 15 fixes that the local field […]
-
Budget & Policy
In Senate, Fight Over Must-Pass Budget Bill
A government shutdown loomed Friday as some Senate Democrats held hostage a stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government and its Cold War nuclear cleanup work funded through late April. The House passed the so-called continuing resolution Thursday, then adjourned for the week. In the Senate, however, Democratic lawmakers led by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) […]
-
Interim Storage & Waste Disposal
DOE Pitches New Deep-Geologic Repository for Defense Waste
The Energy Department will unveil a draft plan for a new deep-geologic repository for defense nuclear waste in the coming days, an agency official said Tuesday during a presentation to a citizens group in South Carolina. “I’m talking about a deep geological repository,” DOE’s Nancy Buschman, senior adviser for defense waste disposal, told members of the […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
Cange Tapped for No. 2 DOE Nuclear Cleanup Position
Sue Cange from the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee has been promoted to principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management at DOE headquarters in Washington, the agency announced Thursday. Cange, most recently manager for DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, has been with DOE for nearly 30 years. She succeeds Mark Whitney, who […]
-
High-Level & Tank Waste
Final Closure of Hanford C Farm Tanks Delayed, Under Tentative Agreement
Sixteen single-shell tanks built to hold liquid radioactive waste at the Energy Department’s Hanford site near Richland, Wash., will not be closed in 2019 as once scheduled, under a tentative agreement finalized last week. These underground tanks in Hanford’s Waste Management Area C have been emptied but must still be either removed from the site, […]
-
Vitrification & Grout
SRS Salt Waste Plant Remains Set for 2018 Start-Up
Testing and commissioning of the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is 36 percent complete, and the plant remains on pace to start-up by December 2018, an Energy Department official said this week. Following more than a year of high-stakes negotiations starting in September 2015, the Energy Department and the South Carolina […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
S.C. Would Take $100M Plutonium Suit to Federal Claims Court as Last Resort
South Carolina on Monday again urged a federal judge to reconsider her finding that the U.S. District Court has no jurisdiction over monetary claims levied against the Energy Department for failing to remove plutonium from the state earlier this year, according to court papers. South Carolina sued DOE in February after the agency failed to […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
Savannah River Site Operator Fined $17K for Waste Transport Violations
The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor has been fined $17,650 for violations related to hazardous waste transport. According to an Energy Department occurrence report, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, an agency under the U.S. Department of Transportation, noted violations committed by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) on in a report dated Nov. […]
-
Decommissioning
NRC Still Waiting on American Centrifuge Decommissioning Plan
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is still waiting for Centrus Energy to submit a cost and schedule estimate for decommissioning an industrial-scale uranium-enrichment demonstration plant in Piketon, Ohio. “We expect to submit the plan in the coming weeks,” Centrus spokesman Jeremy Derryberry said by email Monday. Centrus, the former United States Enrichment Corp., was to have submitted […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
Perma-Fix Exec Moves to FireWater Associates
Renee Echols, a longtime executive at nuclear services provider Perma-Fix Environmental Services, has been named president of FireWater Associates. The nearly 8-year-old Maryville, Tenn., company offers a wide range of nuclear waste management, transport, regulatory and environmental compliance, and supply chain management services, for government and commercial clients, including radioactive waste profiling, waste management […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
At Hanford: Hanford ORP Names New Deputy Manager
The Department of Energy Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site in Washington state has named Ben Harp as deputy manager, after he served in the position on an acting basis for several weeks. He also will serve as chief operating officer for the DOE office charged with management and disposal of 56 million gallons […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
CORRECTION
An article in the Dec. 2 edition of Weapons Complex Monitor (“SRS Advisory Board Wants DOE to Expedite Aluminum-Clad Spent Fuel Processing,” Vol. 27, No. 46) should have said 80 high-flux isotope reactor cores that could be processed at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site are stored at the Savannah River Site.