The Washington state Department of Ecology is extending the public comment period on the sitewide Dangerous Waste Permit for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site until Jan. 15, 2027, the state announced this week.
The prior comment deadline was Oct. 27. The draft renewal document is known as Revision 9A.
The last big revision occurred in 2012 and the state Ecology department received more than 5,000 comments from private citizens, state, local and federal agencies, tribes, environmental groups and other stakeholders. Revision 9A of the sitewide permit addresses 52 waste sites and facilities across the 580-square-mile Hanford Site. A four-page summary of Revision 9 document can be found here.
Urenco USA completed the installation of its sixth new cascade at the National Enrichment Facility in New Mexico, hitting the 75% completion mark in its enrichment expansion plan.
Urenco USA, an affiliate of the European company Urenco, said in a press release the production of the sixth cascade began Oct. 8. The company expects to install the seventh cascade later this year and the eighth and final one in spring 2027.
The company previously installed its fourth cascade in April and fifth in July. The additional cascades are part of Urenco’s plan to expand its uranium enrichment capacity at its Eunice, N.M. facility from 2025 to 2027. This plan would bring 700,000 new separative work units (SWU) online to support the Department of Energy’s recent efforts to expand domestic enrichment capacity.
The Department of Energy said last month it is launching a solicitation for a new management contract for the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
The current contract will expire on Sept. 30, 2027, the DOE Office of Science said in a “notice of intent to compete,” which first appeared online Sept. 10. The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education is “dedicated to enabling critical scientific, research, and health initiatives of the Department and its laboratory system,” DOE said in the notice.
The current contract is held by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). In June, the DOE Office of Inspector General released a public summary of an audit it conducted questioning $590 million in costs ORAU incurred over three fiscal years, ending in fiscal 2023. ORAU disputed the findings and planned to submit more documentation.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management last month marked the 20th anniversary of final remediation of the Fernald Site, a former uranium processing facility 20 miles outside of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Over 250 people turned out for a Sept. 19 commemoration of the Cold War nuclear site that operated from 1951 until 1986 when cleanup started, according to an Oct. 5 news release from the Office of Legacy Management.
The 1,050-acre property in Fernald, Ohio is now the Fernald Preserve. After spending years as a federal Superfund Site, the DOE Office of Environmental Management declared the property cleaned up in 2006 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Ohio EPA both agreed, according to the news release. The cost of the cleanup was about $4.4 billion, according to a Fernald fact sheet.
