DOE-EM releases 2024 cleanup priorities

February 1, 2024, 3:22PMRadwaste Solutions
Click to expand to see all priorities. (Image: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has released its program priorities for calendar year 2024, covering key cleanup actions, project construction, acquisition, and other important activities that will further the office’s mission of addressing the environmental legacy of the nation’s nuclear research and weapons development.

DOE’s Legacy Management launches podcast series

December 19, 2023, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
DOE-LM’s Taylour Whelan interviews DOE-LM director Carmelo Melendez for one of four podcasts produced for the office’s 20th anniversary celebration. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management, which oversees department legacy sites that have been cleaned of radioactive waste and environmental contamination, debuted its first podcast on December 15. Launched in honor of the office’s 20th anniversary, the podcast series includes four episodes, each featuring a different member of the DOE-LM team.

DOE issues $19 million Community Capacity Building Grant Program FOA

December 8, 2023, 12:01PMRadwaste Solutions

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management released a competitive funding opportunity announcement (FOA) on December 6 for the Community Capacity Building Grant Program, aimed at communities affected by DOE-EM’s mission to clean up legacy nuclear waste.

DOE seeks input on Hanford’s 5-year cleanup plan

October 16, 2023, 12:40PMRadwaste Solutions
Crews with Hanford contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company break up concrete and remove contaminated soil near the former K Area reactors on the Hanford Site earlier this year. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy is seeking the public’s input on the Hanford Site’s 5-year plan, which outlines planned cleanup work either to be completed or initiated at the former plutonium production site near Richland, Wash. The DOE updates Hanford’s 5-year plan annually to reflect current progress and ongoing integrated planning for future work at the site.

Oak Ridge seeing returns on investment in new regulatory partnerships

October 11, 2023, 12:09PMRadwaste Solutions
Contaminated soil is loaded in containers for disposal at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said a new regulatory partnership framework established in recent years by the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM), its contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) is ushering in a new chapter of accelerated cleanup at the department’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.

DOE-EM lacks clear view of operating costs, GAO says

October 4, 2023, 9:51AMRadwaste Solutions

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, which is responsible for the cleanup of 15 nuclear sites across the country, lacks a clear understanding of its costs for work not directly related to site cleanup, hampering the department’s ability to prioritize competing funding needs, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

The Ubiquity of PFAS: An Emerging Issue in Decommissioning

September 22, 2023, 3:08PMRadwaste SolutionsJay Peters, Nadia Glucksberg, and John Xiong

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), an anthropogenic class of several thousand chemicals made for use in products such as nonstick cookware, water-, grease-, and stain-resistant materials, surfactants, and fire suppression foams [1], are emerging as a complicating factor in nuclear decommissioning. These chemicals, which have been manufactured globally, including in the United States, have gained regulatory and public attention due to their persistence and ubiquity in the environment, ability to be detected at low parts-per-trillion levels, and health-based standards set at levels hundreds to thousands of times lower than more classic contaminants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

EPA adds Oklahoma’s Fansteel Metals site to National Priorities List

September 13, 2023, 7:01AMRadwaste Solutions

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that it is adding Oklahoma’s Fansteel Metals/FMRI Superfund site to the National Priorities List. The list includes the nation’s most serious uncontrolled or abandoned releases of contamination and serves as the basis for prioritizing EPA Superfund cleanup funding and enforcement actions.

DOE awards governors association $2.6 million cooperative agreement

July 10, 2023, 7:00AMRadwaste Solutions

The Department of Energy has awarded an estimated $2.6 million to the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices to work collaboratively with governors to solve the continued challenges posed by waste management and cleanup at DOE sites, the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management announced on July 5.

DOE reduces chemical hazards at Kentucky’s Paducah Site

July 5, 2023, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Paducah Site deactivation crews use negative air machines to open sodium fluoride traps. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management recently shipped for off-site disposal 14 sodium fluoride traps, or exchange vessels, from the C-310 Product Withdrawal facility at the DOE’s Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Kentucky. DOE-EM said it has also eliminated the site’s entire inventory of chlorine gas cylinders.

DOE-EM outlines its cleanup goals for the coming decade

May 22, 2023, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has released its Strategic Vision 2023–2033, a blueprint of the office’s anticipated cleanup achievements over the next decade. DOE-EM said the strategic vision is focused on the priorities of addressing radioactive liquid tank waste, demolishing contaminated buildings, remediating contaminated soil and groundwater, and safely managing and disposing of waste.

“The Strategic Vision 2023–2033 is intended to help us gaze further out to a place we want to be in the future,” DOE-EM senior advisor William “Ike” White said. “It sets EM on a course that will span a decade and inspire us all to achieve EM’s vital nuclear cleanup mission.”

DOE to consider recycling contaminated Portsmouth nickel

April 18, 2023, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
Demolition of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant’s X-326 building was completed in June 2022. (Photo: Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth)

As part of its ongoing cleanup work, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is looking into the potential reuse of approximately 6,400 tons of radiologically surface-contaminated nickel that has been removed from the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio. DOE-EM began decommissioning the Portsmouth plant, one of three Cold War–era gaseous diffusion plant in the United States, in 2011.

Contaminated Oklahoma site to be made an EPA priority

April 5, 2023, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed adding the Fansteel Metals Superfund site in Muskogee, Okla., to the National Priorities List (NPL), the roster of the nation’s most contaminated sites that threaten human health or the environment. By adding this site to the NPL, the EPA said it can prioritize funding for cleanup and necessary enforcement action.

Sen. Hawley introduces bill requiring cleanup of St. Louis area school

March 1, 2023, 7:01AMRadwaste Solutions
Contractors scan floors inside Jana Elementary School in Missouri during testing done in October 2022. (Photo: USACE/JP Rebello)

New legislation that would require the cleanup of Jana Elementary School in suburban St. Louis was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.). The Justice for Jana Elementary Act would also order the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to test all properties in the Hazelwood School District, of which Jana Elementary is a part.

How has digital technology changed environmental remediation?

November 29, 2022, 9:30AMNuclear News

Jesus Zamora

Regardless of the specific field you work in or how your daily tasks are performed, digital technology does not go unnoticed, and the environmental remediation field is no exception. Digital technology can be defined as electronic tools, services, or devices that create, store, transmit, and manage data. As technology evolves, so do the ways in which it can be incorporated into remediation activities.

Adequate incorporation of these technologies can greatly improve both workflow and productivity while enhancing the quality and maintaining the integrity of data. My team and I have been able to connect radiological instruments to computers wirelessly, collect millions of radiological measurements, track the approximate location of these measurements, save measurements automatically in a database, and access them at will.

DOE begins inspection of abandoned uranium mines in Navajo Nation

October 19, 2022, 7:00AMRadwaste Solutions
DRUM program members and others visit mine sites in the Navajo Nation during the spring of 2022. (Photo: DOE-LM)

The Department of Energy’ Office of Legacy Management (LM) will be conducting verification and validation work at abandoned uranium mines in the Navajo Nation of northeastern Arizona during the fall field season, which runs from mid-October to mid-December.

Savannah River Site uses passive system to remove groundwater contaminants

June 8, 2022, 3:00PMNuclear News
SRNS environmental engineers Bryce Garner (left) and Adam Willey (center) ask questions of lead operator Daniel Ferrell (right), from field services contractor Cascade Environmental, as he describes how equipment injects oil and iron into the Savannah River Site’s groundwater. (Photo: DOE)

In this week’s “EM Update,” the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) reports that its contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) has successfully reduced degreasing solvents in the aquifer beneath the Savannah River Site in South Carolina using a technology that injects a form of iron and oil into groundwater.

“The oil attracts the Cold War[–era] cleaning solvents while the iron degrades and neutralizes the contamination,” said Shannan Lucero, SRNS manager for area closure projects.

Remediation of two Kyrgyz uranium legacy sites completed

March 29, 2022, 7:02AMRadwaste Solutions
A view of the village of Min Kush in central Kyrgyzstan. (Photo: EBRD)

The remediation of two former Soviet-era uranium mining sites in Kyrgyzstan has been completed on schedule and below budget, despite difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced on March 28.

Canada’s CNL seeks stakeholder support for Chalk River disposal facility

March 2, 2022, 7:00AMRadwaste Solutions
A rendering of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ proposed Near Surface Disposal Facility. (Image: CNL)

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is asking its stakeholders (members of the public, industry, elected officials, and employees) to support a proposal to construct the Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) to dispose of legacy radioactive waste at the Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario.