Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, this morning will kick off the plenary session for the 2018 Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Ariz.
Fleischmann, whose district includes the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation, will speak this morning at the Phoenix Convention Center alongside Billy Morrison, CEO of Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal Services, and James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management.
The international event, organized by the nonprofit WM Symposia, is devoted to topics connected with radioactive waste cleanup and decommissioning nuclear facilities, including across the Department of Energy complex. More than 2,000 participants from industry, government, and academia are expected to attend the event, according to the WMS website.
This year’s event will emphasize use of robotics in nuclear cleanup and decommissioning operations. The keynote luncheon today will be given by Robert Ambrose, chief of the Software, Robotics, and Simulation Division at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Sessions this week will address business opportunities at the DOE complex and the implications of its aging workforce. Other topics include the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the 2017 resumption of transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, spent nuclear fuel issues, and the status of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository license application. The event ends Thursday.
On Friday, Waste Management Symposia stragglers can stay to attend an Nuclear Regulatory Commission public meeting, also at the Phoenix Convention Center, on the agency’s low-level radioactive waste regulatory program.
