Waste Control Specialists

Prospective bidders on a Department of Energy contract for long-term storage of domestic elemental mercury now have two extra weeks, until May 20, to submit proposals. In an update on its procurement page for Elemental Mercury Long-term Management and Storage, the DOE said Thursday April 21 that the submission deadline is being extended to May […]

The procurement arm of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office is requesting information from contractors capable of storing and disposing of low-level or mixed low-level hazardous waste, according to a recent online notice. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center issued a sources sought/request for information (RFI) on Thursday April 21, trying to […]

Washington state regulators probably will not allow the Department of Energy to solidify the Hanford Site’s liquid tank waste with grout-like cement until and unless the parties agree to permit disposal methods for liquid waste other than immobilization in glass, officials told a National Academies of Sciences panel Thursday. “Ecology considers on-site grout disposal to […]

Should the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state decide to grout much of its supplemental low-activity waste at an existing off-site facility, the process could start as early as 2027, a Savannah River National Laboratory official told a National Academies of Sciences panel Tuesday in Richland, Wash. Dan McCabe, senior scientist from the […]

The procurement arm of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office is requesting information from contractors capable of storing and disposing of low-level or mixed low-level hazardous waste, according to a recent online notice. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center issued a sources sought/request for information (RFI) on Thursday April 21, trying to […]

Prospective bidders on a Department of Energy contract for long-term storage of domestic elemental mercury now have two extra weeks, until May 20, to submit proposals. In an update on its procurement page for Elemental Mercury Long-term Management and Storage, the DOE said Thursday April 21 that the submission deadline is being extended to May […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday continued to poke holes in the state of Texas’s lawsuit over an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel proposed for Andrews County, arguing that the Lone Star State had no right to sue — and even if it did, that its case was badly flawed. Texas hasn’t shown […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday formally resumed its quest for a domestic site to store elemental mercury with publication of a solicitation for bids. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center announced in a press release a final request for proposals (RFP) for a long-term elemental mercury storage contractor. The move comes weeks […]

An amended record of decision published this week by the Department of Energy officially withdrew an earlier designation of Waste Control Specialists as a storage site for elemental mercury. The long-telegraphed move was part of a legal settlement DOE reached in 2020 with gold mining concerns, themselves domestic generators of elemental mercury, who sued DOE […]

Interested stakeholders should get a chance this month to chat with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about a recent staff report analyzing the agency’s ability to regulate large-scale transportation of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S., commission documents show. NRC staff plans to hold public meetings “beginning in January 2022” to discuss the results of its […]

The Department of Energy could solicit bids for long-term management and storage of elemental mercury in January, the Office of Environmental Management said in a procurement update after Christmas. After court action by gold mining companies forced DOE to drop earlier plans to designate Waste Control Specialists in West Texas as its preferred long-term storage […]

A Department of Energy policy from 2019 that found certain less-risky high-level radioactive waste can be treated and disposed of as low-level waste was, on further review, upheld by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, the agency said Thursday. To that end, DOE on Wednesday issued a Federal Register notice affirming that this altered interpretation of […]

In the spirit of the season, groups representing the nuclear industry and nuclear professionals were perfectly courteous and appropriately thankful for the $6 billion in credits provided for struggling nuclear power plants by the bipartisan infrastructure deal signed into law on Nov. 15. Though buried amid a thousand pages of legislative text, details about the […]

The Department of Energy expects to issue a finding by July 2022 on the practicality of solidifying 2,000 gallons of tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington using concrete-like grout, federal officials said during an online public meeting Thursday. But before DOE issues the finding, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was expected to check […]

Texas has “a strong leg to stand on” in opposing an interim storage facility planned there, according to an op-ed published over the weekend by the Texas state lawmaker who sponsored the state’s recently-enacted ban on high-level nuclear-waste storage. With the passage of House Bill 7 in September, the Texas legislature “prevented radioactive waste of […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — Advocacy in Washington for a consent-based approach to siting a permanent repository for the nation’s nuclear waste is only a political football that stalling “meaningful” progress towards a disposal solution, an official from the county hosting the moribund Yucca Mountain repository said here this week. “I believe we’re at a point where […]

A federal judge should toss Texas’s suit against a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel because the state has not attempted to settle its grievance with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission outside of court, the agency said Thursday.  It’s the same legal defense that the agency, which licensed Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed storage […]

Low-level nuclear waste shipments from a Massachusetts nuclear plant being decommissioned by Holtec International won’t have to adhere to a 20-day tracking rule, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided last week. Although NRC’s regulations say that a company shipping low-level radioactive waste to a disposal site needs to track and report shipments that don’t arrive at […]

The company in charge of a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas is getting involved in the state’s federal suit against the proposed site, according to recent court filings. A judge in the U.S. fifth circuit court of appeals allowed Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to intervene in Texas attorney general Ken […]

The company in charge of a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas is getting involved in the state’s federal suit against the proposed site, according to recent court filings. A judge in the U.S. fifth circuit court of appeals allowed Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to intervene in Texas attorney general Ken […]

The parties involved in a federal court case aimed at blocking a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel could still be litigating through next summer, court filings this week show. If a judge in the D.C. circuit court of appeals approves a draft schedule filed by the parties Tuesday, final briefings in the […]

The parties involved in a federal court case aimed at blocking a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel could still be litigating through next summer, new court filings show. If a judge in the D.C. circuit court of appeals approves a draft schedule filed by the parties Tuesday, final briefings in the suit […]

A lawsuit challenging a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel should see some new action this week, court documents show. Tuesday is the deadline for a coalition of anti-nuclear groups to file new motions in their suit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed spent fuel storage site in […]

A new Texas ban on high-level nuclear waste could be “potentially quite a playing field for lawyers coming up,” a member of an interstate nuclear waste compact told a citizens advisory panel in Vermont recently. The Lone Star state put the anti-nuclear-waste law on the books earlier this month and now, Austin and Washington must […]

While the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad, N.M., field office believes passage of time has made transuranic drums stranded since 2014 at Waste Control Specialists in Texas safe for travel to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is not yet convinced. That is the crux of a Sept. 8 letter sent to […]

Texas started legal proceedings this week aimed at overturning the Nuclear Regulatory’s Commission’s decision to license a commercially operated interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel in the Lone Star state. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, alongside Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), asked a judge in the U.S. […]

While the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad, N.M., field office believes passage of time has made transuranic drums stranded since 2014 at Waste Control Specialists in Texas safe for travel to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is not yet convinced. That is the crux of a Sept. 8  letter sent to […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission opened the door for history this week when it approved a private company’s application to build what would be the only consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. In a much-anticipated decision Monday, NRC greenlit Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in Andrews […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission opened the door for history this week when it approved a private company’s application to build what would be the only consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the U.S.. In a much-anticipated decision Monday, NRC greenlit Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in Andrews […]

Oregon state officials are “cautiously” behind the U.S. Department of Energy’s effort to “prove out” technology to grout up to 2,000 gallons of low-activity tank waste at the Hanford Site in neighboring Washington and dispose of it outside of the Pacific Northwest. “Oregon has not previously issued public statements regarding the Test Bed Initiative,” Maxwell […]