Orano

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, […]

Stricter safety measures for workers mean the Energy Department will likely blow deadlines to drain radioactive waste from tanks at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., over the next four to eight years, an official with the agency’s Office of River Protection said Wednesday. Schedule pressure resulted from “inefficiencies we’re seeing because of a number […]

The Energy Department has canceled a meeting that was expected to be the forum for a major announcement about whether the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant would be ready to resume disposal of nuclear waste this year. Sources said Tuesday DOE canceled the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) town hall scheduled for Thursday. The move will […]

As soon as Thursday, the Energy Department could declare it is ready to once again dispose of nuclear waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant after a nearly three-year pause. At 8:30 p.m. Eastern time that day, DOE and the city of Carlsbad, N.M., plan to webcast their latest quarterly Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) […]

This week, as the Energy Department weighed decisions that will determine if the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) reopens in 2016, news broke that New Mexico’s U.S. senators believe the facility needs tens of millions of dollars more than expected to safely resume nuclear waste disposal. After numerous setbacks this year, DOE and site contractor […]

A dozen workers this week reported symptoms or suspicious odors that could be related to chemical vapors from waste stored at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Thursday afternoon, three workers reported a suspicious ammonia-like odor outside a facility used to switch out empty air bottles for full containers to use with […]

Washington state and its co-plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit over chemical vapor protections for workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site are asking for five more months to prepare for trial. The proposed delay would move the trial from Sept 18, 2017, to Feb. 19, 2018. The current case schedule cannot be met, in […]

South Carolina wants a U.S. District Court judge to reconsider her recent opinion that she has no jurisdiction to rule on the $100 million the state is seeking in its lawsuit over disposition of DOE plutonium stored at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. State Attorney General Alan Wilson sued the Energy Department, Energy Secretary […]

The Energy Department is scheduled on Friday to complete the last agency-led review standing in the way of reopening the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for transuranic waste-disposal operations, sources in New Mexico said Wednesday. DOE is set to conduct its exit interview with WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) in the early afternoon, local […]

Waste Control Specialists is seeking leniency from federal regulators after apparently violating its federal waste-storage permit to prevent a possible radiation release in 2014, according to an official account the company filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The 12-page account, the most detailed Waste Control Specialists (WCS) has offered publicly on the situation, is printed […]

The Energy Department is due to conclude this week its final review of whether the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico is ready to reopen for transuranic waste disposal nearly three years after a pair of accidents closed the deep-underground facility. DOE on Nov. 14 began an operational readiness review that was expected to take […]

A federal judge on Tuesday denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to increase protections from chemical vapors for Hanford Site workers until a lawsuit is decided. Judge Thomas Rice of U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington denied all three of the measures requested by Washington state, the local watchdog organization Hanford Challenge, and Plumbers and […]

A final, crunch-time review to determine if the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is ready to receive nuclear waste for the first time in nearly three years will take less time to finish than once thought, the Department of Energy announced Tuesday. The DOE-led operational readiness review that began Monday, as first reported in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, will […]

Twenty workers at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site will swap badges to Savannah River Remediation from Parsons to ensure liquid waste treatment at the Salt Waste Processing Facility begins around 2019, as scheduled. The AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation (SRR) “recently chose to hire 20 Radiological Protection Inspectors through Parsons, the SWPF [Salt Waste Processing […]