Waste Control Specialists

New Mexico wants assurance transuranic waste, held 10 years at a commercial storage facility in Texas, won’t pose an ignition threat before signing off on shipment to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. As a result, DOE is now facing pressure from both Texas and New Mexico. The Texas attorney […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will have to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if it wants another chance to prove that it can legally license commercial interim storage of spent nuclear fuel. According to an order dated Thursday, judges of the Fifth Circuit voted 9-7, with one recused, not to rehear the NRC’s argument that […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch thinks it could complete major infrastructure projects in New Mexico and South Carolina during calendar year 2024, the agency said Tuesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management’s top priorities for 2024 include final testing of a new underground ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in […]

The Department of Energy plans to extend its deal with Waste Control Specialists through late 2026 for ongoing storage of stranded transuranic waste, stuck at the West Texas site for about a decade. In June 2023, DOE told the Texas attorney general’s office it plans to move its 74 containers of transuranic waste out of […]

Local officials last week failed to pass a resolution opposing disposal of greater than class c radioactive waste at Waste Control Specialists’ site in Andrews Texas, local media reported. The resolution, considered during a Dec. 6 meeting of the Andrews County Commissioner’s Court, failed on a 2-2 vote. The tie vote means the local government […]

Local officials last week failed to pass a resolution opposing disposal of greater than class c radioactive waste at Waste Control Specialists’ site in Andrews Texas, local media reported. The resolution, considered during a Dec. 6 meeting of the Andrews County Commissioner’s Court, failed on a 2-2 vote. The tie vote means the local government […]

Texas on Monday told a federal court not to convene all of its judges to rehear a case that this summer effectively killed commercial interim storage of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. In a 24 page brief filed with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, opposed a rehearing […]

The Environmental Protection Agency is considering a variance to allow the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington to ship 2,000 gallons of radioactive tank waste to commercial disposal sites for solidification. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposes to issue DOE a “treatability variance” from Land Disposal Restrictions, according to a Tuesday Federal Register […]

Holtec and the Nuclear Energy Institute appeared in court to have their say in a two year-old lawsuit that could determine the future of commercially operated storage of spent nuclear fuel. The company and the industry’s Washington-based advocacy group filed friend-of-the-court briefs last week with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Interim Storage […]

By Oct. 24, the government could ask a federal court to revisit a ruling that essentially killed commercial consolidated interim storage of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Justice, plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by Texas to stop an interim storage site in its territory, need that […]

Waste Control Specialists has filed a permit renewal application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, company president David Carlson told Exchange Monitor this week at the National Cleanup Workshop in Arlington, Va. The renewal paperwork includes the original application and subsequent amendments, with Texas recently. The current application does not expire until September 2024, […]

ARLINGTON, VA. — This winter the Department of Energy and Waste Control Specialists should start moving remaining containers of transuranic waste, stuck at the company’s Texas facility for nine years, to a new above-ground storage facility to prep the material for shipment to the agency’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The “notional” deadline […]

ARLINGTON, VA. — This winter the Department of Energy and Waste Control Specialists should start moving remaining containers of transuranic waste, stuck at the company’s Texas facility for nine years, to a new above-ground storage facility to prep the material for shipment to the agency’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The “notional” deadline […]

The Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio last week made its first rail shipment of depleted uranium oxide containers to the Waste Control Specialists disposal site in West Texas, DOE announced Tuesday. The shipment of 120 storage cylinders from the Mid-America Conversion Services depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion plant at the former gaseous diffusion […]

Waste Control Specialists was expected to provide an update next week in Andrews, Texas, about the company’s efforts to expand its existing low-level waste disposal site there, a tri-state waste-disposal commission announced Wednesday. The update from Waste Control Specialists, which operates a state-owned low-level waste disposal site at its Andrews County property, was scheduled as […]

The Department of Energy, contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge and various state and local officials broke ground Wednesday on a new $550-million low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, DOE said in a press release. The new Environmental Management Disposal Facility will provide onsite disposal of debris generated as DOE continues […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management intends to issue no-bid business to Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas to relocate containers of long-stranded transuranic waste to a new above-ground storage area at the commercial waste site. “The estimated value of the resulting order is not expected to exceed $16,500,000 ($16.5 million),” DOE’s […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management intends to issue no-bid business to Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas to relocate containers of long-stranded transuranic waste to a new above-ground storage area at the commercial waste site. “The estimated value of the resulting order is not expected to exceed $16,500,000 ($16.5 million),” DOE’s […]

The Department of Energy says no significant environmental impact should result from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina shipping contaminated process equipment, currently managed as a high-level radioactive waste, to a commercial disposal site for low-level waste. The DOE Office of Environmental Management released environmental assessment documents Wednesday backing its conclusion that the grouted […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management intends to issue no-bid business to Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas to relocate containers of long-stranded transuranic waste to a new above-ground storage area at the commercial waste site. “The estimated value of the resulting order is not expected to exceed $16,500,000 ($16.5 million),” DOE’s […]

A transuranic waste container potentially too contaminated to be disposed of, yet already shipped to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, will be sent back to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina in August, the prime contractor for disposal site said Tuesday. The standard waste box, now located in […]

A transuranic waste container potentially too contaminated to be disposed of, yet already shipped to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, will be sent back to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina in August, the prime contractor for disposal site said Tuesday. The standard waste box, now located in […]

Summer is here and it has been a hot and in some cases smoky weather week for some facilities connected with the Department of Energy’s weapons complex.  Workers at a commercially-owned waste disposal facility in West Texas and DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., coped with dangerous heat warnings issued by the […]

Workers at a commercially-owned waste disposal facility in West Texas and the Department of Energy’s disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste near Carlsbad, N.M., should be mindful of dangerous heat wave warnings issued by the National Weather Service today in their localities. In Andrews County, Texas where Waste Control Specialists (WCS) is located, the forecast […]

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Grouting low-level radioactive waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, fully staffing a federal safety watchdog and other topics generated attention here Thursday at an annual meeting of a federal contractors group Thursday. The DOE’s acting head of the Office of Environmental Management, William (Ike) White told the Energy […]

Wrap Up:WCS faces 2024 permit renewal; experts study nuke war’s enviro impact; DOE awards $2M grant to Paducah chamber Waste Control Specialists, the commercial radioactive waste storage and disposal site in Andrews County, Texas, will be up for permit renewal later this year, a state regulator told Exchange Monitor’s Radwaste Summit 2.0 last week in […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — By June 30, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office expects to provide the Texas attorney general with a “detailed schedule” for retrieving boxes of transuranic waste stranded at a private disposal site in Andrews County for nearly a decade. In a May 10 letter to Phillip Ledbetter, managing enforcement lawyer with […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — By June 30, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office expects to provide the Texas attorney general with a “detailed schedule” for retrieving boxes of transuranic waste stranded at a private disposal site in Andrews County for nearly a decade. In a May 10 letter to Phillip Ledbetter, managing enforcement lawyer with […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV — The Department of Energy should in June provide a timeline for removing long-stranded drums of transuranic waste from a commercial storage site in Andrews County, a Texas regulator said here Tuesday.  “They are moving forward with getting the building ready to eventually move the waste,” Ashley Forbes, deputy director of the radioactive […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday it found no significant environmental impact from allowing Waste Control Specialists to move containers of long-stranded Department of Energy transuranic waste to another location within the company’s Andrews County, Texas property. The move, sought by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) 11 months ago, would allow relocation of 74 containers of […]