Top nuclear cleanup officials from the United States and the United Kingdom, along with the outgoing chief executive officer of Maryland-based contractor Amentum, were scheduled to kick off the annual Nuclear Waste Management Symposia Monday in Phoenix.
The conference devoted to radioactive waste management and related topics is returning this year as an in-person event after being forced online in March 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The event often draws upwards of 2,000 people to the Phoenix Convention Center. This year’s show was scheduled to run through Thursday afternoon.
The symposia kickoff was to include John Vollmer, CEO of Amentum, Germantown, Md., with David Peattie, CEO of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and William (Ike) White, senior advisor for DOE’s $7.6-billion Office of Environmental Management.
Vollmer planned to retire as Amentum’s CEO on March 28.
Another key session Monday will be a panel on hot topics at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. That discussion was to be led by White’s No. 2, Todd Shrader, the principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management.
Besides DOE and its big contractors, the symposia agenda also includes top managers from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Amid Russia’s ongoing military invasion of Ukraine, there was planned on Monday afternoon a session titled “Global Lessons Learned: Recovery after a National Crisis or Disruptive Events.” Speakers will be drawn from the U.K.’s National Decommissioning Authority, the U.S. DOE and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories.
Meanwhile, a key Tuesday session was to provide an update on decommissioning efforts at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex following the 2011 meltdown accident that followed a major earthquake and tsunami. The panel will include speakers from Tokyo Electric Power and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency among others.
