The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has hauled away the last of demolition debris from buildings torn down last year at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site in Southern California, according to a Tuesday release.
Trucks carrying the waste from buildings within DOE’s Energy Technology Engineering Center northwest of Los Angeles rolled out on Jan. 26, the DOE said.
The waste is being shipped to EnergySolutions’ low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Utah, according to a spokesperson for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, which is overseeing cleanup of Santa Susana, including the roughly 450 acres that were leased to DOE for nuclear research. Most of the 2,850-acre site in Simi Valley is controlled by Boeing or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor of DOE, did nuclear reactor and liquid metal research at the California location starting in the 1950s. Most nuclear-related operations at the property ceased in 1988, according to the DOE. The last of the DOE buildings came down in October 2021, although soil and water remediation at ETEC might stretch into the 2030s.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management “takes public health and environmental protection very seriously, and we have a commitment to the community, the local tribe and the state to clean the site safely and effectively,” William “Ike” White, senior adviser for the office, said in the press release.
Editor’s Note: Second graph corrected at 11 a.m. Feb. 4.
