An Amentum-led Department of Energy contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state is starting to remove radioactive waste from single-shell Tank A-101 and transfer it to a newer double-shell tank, DOE said in a Tuesday press release.
Removal began of the 325,000 gallons of radioactive and chemical waste in Hanford’s A Tank Farm a month after Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) emptied the 21st single-shell tank at the former plutonium production complex. So far, roughly 3 million gallons have been moved from single-shell to double-shell tanks at Hanford, DOE said in the release.
The A Tank Farm includes a half-dozen 1950s-era tanks. Tank A-101 has primarily salt-based, solid waste and work crews will use pressurized water and robotic equipment to pump out the waste, DOE said in the release. The Tank A-101 project could take roughly 18 months, DOE said. Hanford has roughly 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste held in 177 underground tanks. Of those, 148 are single-shell tanks, some of which have leaked. The waste is a byproduct of decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is slowing its hiring and growth with aims to alleviate overcrowding in the community, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said in answer to a local’s question at a large and vocal town hall Monday.
“We’re not going to continue to grow the lab,” Jill Hruby, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), said in answer to a question about the agency’s plans to address workforce and housing issues in New Mexico communities that house the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s workers.
“They’ll still be hiring and replace people who leave the laboratory but not to grow the size of the laboratory,” Hruby added. “So we’re trying to… make sure that growth doesn’t just continue forever. Hopefully the housing can catch up.” The crowd, both virtual and in-person, was vocally oppositional toward the lab, with many asking what DOE planned to do about the lab’s effects on housing, traffic, and waste cleanup.
A plaintiff who claims false statements by the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico led to the breakup of his marriage served legal papers on the government defendant, he told a federal court last week.
After being warned by U.S. District Court Judge Steven Yarbrough that the case would be dismissed unless the defendant is served, plaintiff William Gardner said in a July 17 filing that he has served the summons on Sandia. Garnder is representing himself.
On July 11, Judge Yarbrough issued his second order to Gardner in federal court in New Mexico saying Sandia National Laboratory needs to be properly filed with a summons and a copy of the complaint. Gardner filed his complaint in March alleging DOE’s Sandia lab falsely accused him of criminal activity when his then-wife, an employee for Sandia in Albuquerque, was seeking a promotion that required a security clearance.
Workers at the Savannah River Site in June removed the last pieces of plutonium recycling equipment from a building that will house the site’s pit plant, the site’s management contract said Wednesday.
Over 18 months, workers removed over 2,500 gross tons of material from the area, according to the press release from Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. The effort is part of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) drive to turn what was the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility into the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, a factory for the fissile first-stage nuclear-weapon cores called pits.
According to NNSA’s latest informal estimate, the construction project will cost up to $25 billion, take until 2035 to complete and employ some 2,500 people represented by 19 local unions. When the pit plant is complete, it will employ about 2,000 people, NNSA has said. The NNSA plans to produce at least 80 plutonium pits per year between the Savannah River pit plant and a smaller plant being built at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Editor’s note: Last brief modified on Aug. 1 to correct name of one of the facilities.
