The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has awarded nearly $54 million in noncompetitive financial assistance grants and cooperative agreements to help support the office’s cleanup program. DOE-EM is responsible for environmental legacy cleanup of the effects of decades of nuclear weapons development and government-sponsored nuclear energy research.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has issued a draft request for proposal for a contract covering the next phase of cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York.

The Department of Energy has released the first request for information (RFI) related to the department’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, which aims to repurpose certain DOE-owned lands, portions of which were previously used in the nation’s nuclear weapons program, into sites for clean energy generation.

Robotics experts from Sandia National Laboratories and representatives from the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s Technology Development Office recently visited the Sellafield nuclear site in England to discuss how robotics, artificial intelligence, and other emerging tools can be developed and used in nuclear cleanup operations.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said that crews have completed major deactivation efforts at the Alpha-2 building at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The former uranium enrichment facility is scheduled for demolition next year.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that the first batches of glass-forming beads, called frit, were poured last week into a melter at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), also known as the Vit Plant. The melter, which has been heated to 2,100ºF, will be used to immobilize Hanford’s radioactive and chemical tank waste, turning it into a stable glass form through vitrification.

The Idaho National Laboratory is moving closer toward closing its largest building—which, at more than 316,000 square feet, could comfortably house a modern U.S. aircraft carrier, according to the Department of Energy.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management awarded a contract to Aptim Federal Services of Baton Rouge, La., to perform deactivation, decommissioning, and removal of the former Ion Beam Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

A three-day Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program (MSIPP) event, led by Savannah River National Laboratory researcher Simona Hunyadi Murph, was held recently at the South Carolina site, according to a release by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM). The event included a collaborative workshop, job shadowing, and a tour of the laboratory and Savannah River Site field activities.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management awarded a 10-year contract worth up to $5.87 billion to Southern Ohio Cleanup Company (SOCCo) of Aiken, S.C., for the decontamination and decommissioning of the DOE’s Portsmouth site in southern Ohio. SOCCo is a newly formed limited liability company comprising Amentum Environment and Energy, Fluor Federal Services, and Cavendish Nuclear (USA) Inc.

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.

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.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) have negotiated a settlement on terms to renew the 10-year operating permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. The DOE, along with WIPP’s operating contractor, Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, and the NMED negotiated the settlement with New Mexico stakeholders.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has awarded a $2 million grant to the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce for its work in considering the possible future uses of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Kentucky. The project will consist of site mapping, community studies, data analysis, and development of recommended strategies.

An excavator with a hydraulic hammer is used to dismantle the chemical process cell, as part of the deconstruction of the main plant process building at DOE-EM’s West Valley Demonstration Project. (Photo: DOE)

Work crews are currently dismantling the chemical process cell at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York, with work expected to be completed over several months, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management noted late last month. Demolition of the cell, part of West Valley’s main plant processing building, includes the removal of racks used decades ago to store high-level radioactive waste canisters.

According to DOE-EM, a 2023 priority is to dispose of 9,000 tons of demolition waste from the processing building, one of the site’s last remaining major facilities. The demolition is expected to take about 30 months to complete.

The work: Earlier this year, work crews used a heavy-duty excavator with a hydraulic hammer to take out the outermost 3 feet of the cell’s 5-foot-thick reinforced-concrete walls. This lower-risk work allowed workers with CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley, DOE-EM's contractor for the project, to perform other deconstruction activities in parallel, which helped to accelerate the project’s schedule and lower cost, according to DOE-EM.

After initial runs using a mix of radiological waste and nonradioactive simulant, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory site has progressed to treating sodium-bearing waste entirely, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) announced on May 22.

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.”

Since the launch of operations just over a month ago, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at Idaho National Laboratory has increased sodium-bearing waste treatment fivefold. This activity is a vital step in removing the remaining liquid waste from nearby underground tanks at the site and protecting the underlying Snake River Plain Aquifer.

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) recently marked a milestone after its drivers exceeded 16 million safe miles without a serious accident or injury—equivalent to 33 round trips to the moon or more than 642 trips around the world, the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management announced.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) will offer an estimated $24.5 million to minority-serving institutions to help foster a sustainable and diverse science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce pipeline within the office.