Wrap up: Moab project hits 15 million tons; Roswell area flooding alters some WIPP shipments; Centrus VP retiring

The Department of Energy said this week the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project in Moab, Utah has successfully moved away from the Colorado River a total of 15 million tons of tailings.

This time last year, a total of 14 million tons had been moved. 

Contractor North Wind Portage still has about 1 million tons of the contaminated soil and debris to be moved to an engineered disposal cell in Crescent Junction, 30 miles north of the Moab Site, DOE said in a Tuesday press release.  The material resulted from legacy uranium milling operations.

Although the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received little rain from the weather system that caused serious flooding in Roswell, N.M., it did cause road damage prompting DOE to alter this week’s shipment plans for defense-related transuranic waste.

Due to the flooding that occurred Sunday in Roswell, and some resulting road damage, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) “has suspended this week’s shipments from generator sites that would use the highway in the impacted area,” a DOE spokesperson said by email Monday evening.

In response to a follow-up question from Exchange Monitor, the spokesperson confirmed the road in question is U.S. Highway 285 north of Carlsbad, The temporary suspension is being taken “out of an abundance of caution,” the spokesperson said. There were a couple of fatalities and hundreds of emergency water rescues as a result of the weekend flooding around Roswell, N.M., NBC News reported. Roswell is about 110 miles, or a two hour drive from WIPP.

Larry Cutlip, Centrus Energy Corp.’s senior vice president of field operations, last week said he would retire from the company in July, according to an Oct. 18 regulatory filing.

Cutlip gave his notice on Oct. 16, according to a form 8-K Centrus, Bethesda, Md., filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Cutlip “will retire his position at the Company, effective July 31, 2025,” a Friday, reads the 8-K. Cutlip has been in his current role for about eight years.

Cutlip has spent a long career with Centrus and its predecessor company, U.S Enrichment Corporation, where he started working in 1981, according to a Centrus press release from 2008.