January 19, 2016

Waste Shipments Temporarily Halted at Oak Ridge

By ExchangeMonitor

Off-site waste shipments from Oak Ridge were put on hold for a month last year after “deficiencies” were identified in the shipments made by URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), the Department of Energy’s cleanup manager for the Tennessee facility.

DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management made a reference to the problems in its review of UCOR’s performance for the final six months of fiscal 2015. The department elaborated on the waste issues in response to questions.

Mike Koentop, executive officer in the EM Office, said DOE identified two containers that were misclassified during the agency’s June assessment of UCOR’s transportation program. The containers were scheduled to be shipped to the Nevada National Security Site as Department of Transportation “Non-Regulated” waste, but they should have been classified as “Radioactive Material Class 7 Surface Contaminated Objects (SCO)-I,” Koentop said by email.

“The shipment information was corrected and the shipment was dispatched compliantly,” he said.

Koentop added: “UCOR took immediate action and suspended all off-site shipments until they could review their procedures and understand why the shipment was misclassified.”

The DOE contractor reportedly reviewed all paperwork from previous shipments and discovered two additional cases where the incorrect shipping designation was selected, he said.

“UCOR updated its procedures and instituted more rigorous internal oversight to ensure all offsite shipments are properly classified,” the DOE official said. “In total, off-site shipments were suspended for approximately 4 weeks.”

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