Vol. 28, No. 16 
DOE Quiet About Scheduled Start of Nitrate Salt Treatment at LANL
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High-Level & Tank Waste
Hanford Vapor Safety Lawsuit Mediation Begins
Plaintiffs and defendants met with a mediator for a first session Thursday to attempt to resolve a lawsuit demanding better protection for Hanford Site workers exposed to chemical vapors from waste tanks, according to Hanford tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS). The session, held in Seattle, was expected to continue today. Washington […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Demolition Imminent on Most Contaminated Portion of Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant
Crews should within a couple weeks begin demolition of the most contaminated portion of the Hanford Site’s most hazardous building, the Plutonium Finishing Plant. Tom Teynor, Department of Energy manager for the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), provided the update on the highly contaminated canyon of the plant’s Plutonium Reclamation Facility on Tuesday at a committee […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
DOE Enterprise Assessments Office Looking Into Worker Injury at Hanford
The Energy Department’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) is investigating Bechtel National, prime contractor for the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, over a worker injury in November. The office did not describe the details or circumstances of the injury, except to say it occurred “during preparation of a plant cooling […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
DOE IG Criticizes Accounting Tricks on Hanford Sludge Project
The Energy Department’s inspector general said Tuesday a Hanford Site contractor appears on track to start removing 27 cubic meters of radioactive sludge from a building near the Columbia River by October 2018, but dinged the company for masking cost overruns with dodgy accounting. CH2M Plateau Remediation Co. “appears to be on schedule to meet […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Hanford Completes Water-Line Replacement Project
Nearly 5 miles of water lines at the Hanford Site have been replaced, ending both the need for frequent emergency repairs and the potential for contamination to spread deeper in the soil when aging water lines broke or leaked. The recently completed project cost about $3 million, including revegetation and related work, according to Mission […]
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Interim Storage & Waste Disposal
New Yucca Bill Targets Nevada Obstructionism; State Digs In
An expansive nuclear-waste bill unveiled in the House of Representatives this week would strip away some of Nevada’s legal tools for resisting the moribund Yucca Mountain geologic repository the Donald Trump administration wants to resurrect. Among many other things, the highly nuanced, 45-page Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 would if signed into law curtail […]
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Uranium Enrichment & Fuel Cycle
EnergySolutions Will Treat Some American Centrifuge Waste
EnergySolutions, of Salt Lake City, will clean up and package radioactive waste from the canceled American Centrifuge uranium enrichment demonstration in Piketon, Ohio, according to a document published by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The work will be done for Centrus Energy Corp., which was the Energy Department’s prime contractor on the American Centrifuge demo at […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Nuclear Industry Group Wants DOE Uranium Barter to Cease
The Energy Department should cease funding cleanup of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio with bartered uranium, a Washington-based trade group for the nuclear power industry said last week. Further funding for cleanup of DOE facilities should be provided fully through congressional appropriations, so as not to disrupt uranium markets, Nuclear Energy Institute Fuel Cycle Programs Director […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Former EM Boss to Address South Carolina College Grads
Monica Regalbuto, the Energy Department’s nuclear-cleanup chief during the last two years of the Barack Obama administration, will be the commencement speaker for this year’s graduation ceremony at the University of South Carolina Aiken on May 3. The ceremony will take place at the USC Aiken Convocation Center, about 30 miles by road from the […]