EM Update | Vol. 14, Issue 43 | Nov. 1, 2022

• Savannah River Site Project Wins DOE Sustainability Award
• Officials Reflect on Successful ‘Cocooning’ of Seventh Hanford Reactor Building
• Paducah Completes First-of-a-Kind Scanning Facility
• West Valley Crews Safely Remove Concrete Structure Within Main Plant
• Team Exploring Wearable Robotic Devices for EM Workforce
• Savannah River Site Partners with HBCU for Capstone Project
• Idaho Site Crews Demolish Buried Waste Retrieval Facility
• HAMMER Federal Training Center Reaches 25-Year Milestone
• SRS Completes Plutonium Downblending Goal Safely, Ahead of Schedule
• Oak Ridge’s UCOR Takes Lead to Finish Transuranic Waste Processing

Savannah River Site Project Wins DOE Sustainability Award

Savannah River National Laboratory Engineer Peter Avioli, left, and Jeff Thibault, an engineer with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, inspect the Savannah River Site’s phytoremediation project. More than 60 acres of pine trees draw up irrigated water containing tritium pumped from a nearby holding pond and harmlessly release it into the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

DOE bestowed its Sustainability Award on the EM program at the Savannah River Site (SRS) last week for its innovative use of natural resources to safely address groundwater containing the legacy contaminant tritium.

SRS received the Sustainability Award in the “Innovative Approach to Sustainability” category.

"Your efforts and commitment to sustainability have been essential in ensuring DOE's continued success as a federal leader in sustainability," said Scott L. Whiteford, director of the DOE Office of Asset Management.

The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) also earned an honorable mention in the awards program’s “Strategic Partnerships for Sustainability” category for its strategic cleanup successes that are leading to environmental and economic progress in East Tennessee.

In the SRS cleanup project, 62 acres of pine trees effectively act like a forest of tall hydraulic pumps. They draw up irrigated water containing tritium pumped from a nearby holding pond and harmlessly release it into the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

Since the project began in 2001, approximately 190 million gallons of water containing nearly 7,000 curies of tritium have been responsibly irrigated. This remediation method prevents contaminated groundwater from discharging into a nearby stream.

“Simply put, we reroute the contaminated water from moving towards the site boundary and, instead, use the forces of nature to safely transform and eliminate it from the site,” said Jeff Thibault, an engineer with EM contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS).

Researchers and engineers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service-Savannah River (USDA FS-SR), DOE-Savannah River (DOE-SR) and SRNS began designing the approach relying on pine trees in 1999 because “no practicable treatment technology exists to remove tritium from large volumes of groundwater,” said Philip Prater, DOE-SR senior physical scientist.

“Traditional remediation costs associated with this level of tritium removal using ‘pump, treat and reinject’ equipment would have cost close to $180 million over the last 20 years,” said Prater.

The project cost over that timeframe has been about $12 million.

SRS produced tritium for use in the manufacture of nuclear weapons from the site's inception in the early 1950s until the end of the Cold War.

“Only limited pumping is needed in support of the irrigation system, as the trees naturally provide for water uptake and evapotranspiration to the atmosphere,” said Kevin Boerstler, SRNS Area Completion Projects (ACP) subject matter expert.

The SRS project is cost effective because it doesn’t require round-the-clock operations. The contaminated groundwater also flows naturally to the surface, where it collects in the small holding pond.

At the core of the SRS project is phytoremediation, which is the use of plants to clean up a contaminated environment. The USDA FS-SR conducts this process using 51 irrigation zones. It has been largely computerized for optimal evaporation efficiency.

“This sustainable cleanup approach is effective without creating large volumes of waste,” said Prater. “Further, it’s environmentally friendly, as phytoremediation provides for an astounding carbon sequestration of 192 tons annually — an estimated offset equivalent to the use of 37 cars each year.”

The University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) conducted annual sampling and tests. They concluded that about 80% of the tritiated groundwater applied to the pine tree plot was efficiently evaporated in 2021.

That is noteworthy, Prater said, as it demonstrates how much more effective the trees are compared to mechanical evaporator systems, which are typically about 25% effective.

“Public concerns about managing contaminated water at SRS are understandable,” said Thibault. “However, test results validate that the level of tritium found within the irrigation area produces a radiation dose so low as to be insignificant. The fact is optimal water levels are being maintained in the pond. The evaporated tritium becomes virtually immeasurable beyond the irrigated section of forest, much less at the site boundary.”

The success of the ongoing project reflects the collaboration of DOE-SR, SRNS ACP, USDA FS-SR, SREL and the Savannah River National Laboratory. They also worked with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control on the project.

A land transfer agreement identifies large parcels of land located at and around the East Tennessee Technology Park that the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management is set to transfer to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

The Oak Ridge awards program submission, titled “Natural Partnerships - A Sustainable Legacy for the Oak Ridge Reservation,” focused on the complementary nature of DOE’s cleanup, science and research missions paired with the recreational assets and natural landscape that make Oak Ridge unique.

“Our community is extremely proud of the ongoing public and private partnerships by OREM and UCOR that are transforming the Oak Ridge Reservation and our region while advancing sustainability and natural resource management in our area,” Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee President and CEO Teresa Frady said. “Together, we’ve proven that with planning and collaboration, cleanup can enable both economic revitalization and conservation goals.”

Those partnerships have delivered numerous accomplishments over the years, including establishment of trails and greenways across the Oak Ridge Reservation, historic preservation through the Manhattan Project National Historical Park and K-25 History Center, and the transfer of thousands of acres for conservation.

-Contributors: David Barton, DT Townsend

Officials Reflect on Successful ‘Cocooning’ of Seventh Hanford Reactor Building

Hanford Site officials are pictured at a media event last week marking the completion of construction of a protective enclosure around the K East Reactor building. From left are Travis Creach, K East Interim Safe Storage construction manager, Central Plateau Cleanup Company (CPCCo); Paul Branson, K East Interim Safe Storage project manager, CPCCo; Brian Vance, manager, EM Office of River Protection (ORP) and Richland Operations Office (RL); Brian Stickney, deputy manager, ORP and RL; John Eschenberg, president, CPCCo; and Rob Roxburgh, communications director, CPCCo.

Brian Vance, manager of the EM Office of River Protection and Richland Operations Office, takes questions from local media in front of the newly cocooned K East Reactor building on the Hanford Site.

Watch this time-lapse video on construction of a steel structure over the former K East Reactor building. Hanford Site crews have finished building the protective enclosure, or cocoon, around the former plutonium production reactor, achieving an EM 2022 priority.

Workers with EM contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company (CPCCo) broke ground on the project last fall after awarding a subcontract to a local business for the work in August 2021.

“To deliver this project under budget is something we’re all very proud of, and the credit goes to our teams on the ground who managed this project safely and successfully,” CPCCo President John Eschenberg said. “There’s a lot of nobility in the work we do. It’s very energizing for our workforce. They want to be a part of what’s happening here on the Hanford Site, and so for that we’re all very excited for what the future will bring.”

Earlier this year, crews finished backfilling and compacting the area around the former reactor with approximately 34,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel to level the site before pouring a 6-foot-thick concrete foundation to support construction of the cocoon. The first steel columns for the enclosure were placed in mid-May with construction of the frame and installation of metal sheeting on the walls and roof continuing through the summer.

The cocoon’s design allows for routine inspections of the reactor every five years. During this “checkup,” radiation technicians will confirm that no contamination is leaving the sealed reactor core, and that nothing is entering the building from the outside. Additional safety features include new lighting between the structure and the reactor building, as well as upgraded lighting inside the building.

The K East Reactor operated from 1955 to 1971 and is the seventh of Hanford’s nine former reactors to be cocooned. The nearby K West Reactor will be the eighth. The ninth, the B Reactor, has been preserved as the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor and is part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Hanford’s other six reactors were cocooned between 1998 and 2012.

Paducah Completes First-of-a-Kind Scanning Facility

From left, Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership (FRNP) Nondestructive Assay Field Operations Manager Tyler Coriell; Enterprise Technical Assistance Services Senior Nuclear Safety Engineer Allen Townsend; FRNP Nondestructive Assay Manager Rick Williams; and EM Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Safety Systems Oversight Richard Mayer walk down the assembly of detectors in the Large Item Neutron Assay System chamber at the Paducah Site.

PADUCAH, Ky. – Crews have finished building a first-of-a-kind DOE facility that sets the stage to change the way EM’s Paducah Site scans, packages and disposes equipment and waste for the foreseeable future.

The new facility, called the Large Item Neutron Assay System (LINAS), moves Paducah forward in its mission to prepare the C-333 Process Building and other buildings for future demolition at the former gaseous diffusion plant.

C-333 has more than 1,300 pieces of equipment to be downsized and disposed as part of facility deactivation. Deactivation is the process of placing a contaminated excess facility in a stable condition to minimize existing risks and protect workers, the public and the environment while preparing it for future decommissioning and demolition.

LINAS allows workers to collect precise measurements of the material held up in process gas equipment, which helps ensure the equipment is properly prepared for safe disposal.

The unique system performs nondestructive assay (NDA) measurements of the largest process gas components within the plant. NDA helps workers quantify the amount of uranium contained in the large process gas components.

Traditionally, sampling and analysis of the materials contained in a component could only be done by cutting the component open. With LINAS, workers no longer have to cut the component to quantify its contents, thus enhancing safety for the NDA team.

“NDA is a critical part of the deactivation process at the site,” EM Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Manager Joel Bradburne said. “The LINAS facility promises improved efficiency, resulting in increased productivity and long term-cost savings.”

NEW VIDEO ALERT: In this video, the Paducah Site provides an overview of its unique scanning facility called the Large Item Neutron Assay System.

In addition, EM deactivation and remediation contractor Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership (FRNP) obtained Helium-3 Detector Tubes from the EM program at Oak Ridge, which resulted in cost savings for construction of the facility. The tubes will be used to scan and measure the neutron particles emitted from uranium deposits inside large equipment removed from the process building. Measurements from the scans will be used to determine how the equipment will be disposed.

FRNP mobilized construction of the facility with small business subcontractor A&K Construction in the fall of 2021.

“LINAS represents a big step forward for the NDA program at the Paducah Site in terms of technological advancements and enhancing worker safety,” FRNP Program Manager Myrna Redfield said. “From the start of this project, our team has used lessons learned from our sister site, DOE’s Portsmouth, Ohio, location, to ensure we bring in the best possible solutions to the Paducah Site.”

EM anticipates benefiting from long-term cost savings that result from efficiencies and increases in productivity.

-Contributors: Dylan Nichols, Jessica Vasseur

West Valley Crews Safely Remove Concrete Structure Within Main Plant

An excavator tears down the Solvent Storage Terrace as part of the deconstruction of the Main Plant Process Building at EM’s West Valley Demonstration Project.

WEST VALLEY, N.Y. – EM crews at the West Valley Demonstration Project have marked progress in the demolition of the Main Plant Process Building by successfully deconstructing a concrete block structure on the facility’s third floor.

Called the Solvent Storage Terrace, the concrete block structure formally held storage tanks associated with the final purification of uranium and plutonium product. From 1966 to 1972, the Main Plant operated as a commercial reprocessing facility to recover reusable plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear reactor fuel.

“Extensive measures, robust work controls and best practices have been incorporated into this project to ensure the safety of the workforce, community and the environment,” EM West Valley Main Plant Project Director Stephen Bousquet said. “We are performing this work in a deliberate and planned manner to maintain safety and stability of the building as deconstruction proceeds.”

In recent news, EM and prime contractor CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) successfully shipped the first 12 containers of Main Plant demolition debris by rail to an offsite disposal facility.

EM and CHBWV began the controlled deconstruction of the Main Plant in September, achieving an EM 2022 priority. The teardown is expected to take approximately 30 months to complete.

A five-story, 35,100-square-foot reinforced concrete structure, the Main Plant is one of the last remaining major facilities at the West Valley site, and the successful deconstruction of this facility will further reduce environmental risks and position the site for the next phase in cleanup.

-Contributor: Joseph Pillittere

Team Exploring Wearable Robotic Devices for EM Workforce

PENSACOLA, Fla. – Donning devices that help relieve stress on workers’ muscles and joints or create a virtual reality simulating a worksite, more than 40 members of a team recently met in person for the first time since fiscal 2020 to evaluate technology to improve the safety and well-being of EM’s workforce.

The team gathered at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola. IHMC is among the organizations EM has funded to develop and test the wearable devices for members of EM’s workforce who perform a variety of physically challenging tasks.

“Nothing we do is more important than protecting the health and safety of our workforce,” said Kurt Gerdes, director of the EM Office of Technology Development. “This program has the potential to create new approaches to addressing that key challenge.”

More than 40 members of a team evaluating wearable robotic devices for the EM workforce gather for a photo during recent meetings at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola.

The meetings included demonstrations of IHMC’s prototype exoskeleton for tank farm workers across the EM complex and a virtual reality simulation of an EM worksite.

An exoskeleton is a device worn by a person that provides support to muscles and joints or transfers a load to another part of the body or the ground. A wearable robotic device is an exoskeleton that includes sensors, motors and controllers that intelligently apply assistance to the wearer.

At the meetings at IHMC, team members shared updates on their current research and development, including studies of the physical impact of wearable devices in EM tasks, pilot testing at multiple cleanup sites and development of devices tailored to the unique needs of EM workers, including compatibility with personal protective equipment.

Initial results of those studies are encouraging. The team is exploring several potential applications of the technology across the EM complex in the short term. To meet the broader needs of the cleanup complex, additional technology evaluation will continue.

Breakout meetings at IHMC allowed more detailed discussions of key considerations related to the potential application of the devices, including contamination management and methods for measuring success.

Jean P. Pabón, left, project manager with the EM Office of Technology Development Program, and Leo Lagos, director of research at the Applied Research Center at Florida International University, test virtual reality simulation of an EM worksite.

Jason Wheeler, a research and development staff member at Sandia National Laboratories, tries on a prototype exoskeleton for tank farm workers developed by the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Wheeler is part of the team exploring wearable robotics and exoskeletons for EM’s workforce.

Representatives from all the funded organizations that work on the technology development and evaluation program attended the meetings. They included Sandia National Laboratories, which leads the effort; EM’s Savannah River National Laboratory; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Georgia Institute of Technology; Florida International University; and IHMC. Gerdes and Project Manager Jean P. Pabón with the EM Office of Technology Development, and employees from the Hanford Site also attended the meetings.

Launched in fiscal 2020, the technology development and evaluation program works with sites across the EM complex to identify repetitive, physically demanding tasks that may be made easier using wearable devices.

“Bringing the diverse team together provided unique opportunities for collaboration and idea sharing that are much more difficult to achieve in virtual formats,” Pabón said.

The team intends to continue holding in-person meetings twice per year at locations of team members or EM sites as efforts move forward to provide workers with the best possible tools to be safe as they work to complete EM’s cleanup mission.

-Contributor: Jason Wheeler

Savannah River Site Partners with HBCU for Capstone Project

AIKEN, S.C. – EM’s liquid waste contractor at Savannah River Site (SRS) has partnered with Claflin University to challenge the students to improve the method for removing and replacing radioactively contaminated equipment inside the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF).

The partnership between contractor Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC) and the Orangeburg, South Carolina, school further demonstrates the site’s dedication to supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and helping strengthen the school’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum.

The project provides students the opportunity to improve the method for removing and replacing the radioactively contaminated device called the strip effluent coalescer within the SWPF solvent recovery system.

The coalescer combines small droplets of solvent to form larger droplets, enabling their separation from the high-activity salt waste. Any proposed improvements would be intended to use fewer resources and reduce the potential for radiation exposure to workers during removal, transport and replacement of the equipment.

The current process involves the hands-on use of a specially designed transport cart and crane.

SRMC President and Program Manager Dave Olson says this education outreach effort is designed to enable the students to put their training to use by generating new ideas and new methods.

“One of our goals is for the students to consider all possibilities for making our processes safer and better inside SWPF,” Olson said. “We want to motivate students to solve real-world technical issues.”

Karina Liles, Claflin’s interim chair of mathematics and computer science, believes the students will work hard to develop a safe and practical alternative. This capstone project provides the students with an opportunity to develop alternatives to current processes used inside the SRS liquid waste system.

“Our students are up to the task, ready to tackle both technical and operational challenges,” Liles said. “Throughout their STEM training, our focus has been hands-on, problem-based learning. This real-world challenge presents them with a wonderful opportunity for growth, and we are grateful for the opportunity provided by this partnership with Savannah River Mission Completion.”

The capstone program is a part of SRMC’s education outreach that introduces various SRS operations to students, helping them grow real-world skillsets while opening another pipeline of potential employees to support SRS work.

The STEM project began with the fall semester and continues until May 2023.

Radioactive liquid waste is generated at SRS as byproducts from the processing of nuclear materials for national defense, research, medical programs and outer space missions. Totaling about 34 million gallons, the waste is stored in the remaining 43 underground carbon-steel waste tanks grouped into two tank farms at SRS. The SRS liquid waste program consists of high-hazard operations, which include complex engineering, procurement, construction, waste treatment, grouting, and disposal to operationally close the waste tanks.

-Contributor: Jim Beasley

Idaho Site Crews Demolish Buried Waste Retrieval Facility

NEW VIDEO ALERT: Watch EM crews tear down a soft-sided structure that had been used in the retrieval of targeted buried waste at a Cold War-era landfill at the Idaho National Laboratory Site.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – EM crews recently demolished the first of the remaining structures over the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site’s Cold War-era landfill following the completion of targeted buried radioactive waste retrieval there earlier this year.

Workers with EM INL Site contractor Idaho Environmental Coalition (IEC) tore down the Accelerated Retrieval Project (ARP) IV facility at the Subsurface Disposal Area (SDA) after completing extensive decontamination work. They decontaminated its interior fabrics, equipment and structures, applied fixative to interior portions of the building to affix contamination in place, and added clean soil. The ARP IV structure and associated debris will be buried in place in the 97-acre landfill.

“We took our operations experience with the facility and applied it throughout facility deactivation,” said IEC Operations Manager Jerome Starks. “We learned something every day with this project.”

The fabric structure bound to steel framework was constructed in 2009 to retrieve targeted waste. Workers removed waste such as filters, sludges and reactive uranium material called roaster oxides, shipped there from the former Rocky Flats Plant near Denver, Colorado. Following completion of waste exhumation, ARP IV was used to store waste, equipment and soil.

The SDA, now a triangular-shaped section of the Radioactive Waste Management Complex (RWMC), was established in 1952 for shallow burial of contaminated INL Site waste. From 1954 to 1970, the landfill accepted Cold War weapons waste from sites in Colorado, New Mexico and other waste generators throughout the U.S.

In 2008, EM, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state of Idaho agreed to exhume waste from a combined area of the SDA totaling 5.69 acres. That project was completed in March, about 18 months ahead of schedule. The effort helped protect the Snake River Plain Aquifer.

Engineers from RWMC used a computer model to demonstrate the proper number of structural components to be removed from ARP IV, sufficiently weakening the structure to a point where with the proper applied force, it could be pulled to the ground.

Work is progressing on deactivating ARP V. Crews will then shift to deactivate ARP II and III this winter. The remaining ARP structures at the SDA will be dropped in place and covered with soil.

-Contributor: Erik Simpson

HAMMER Federal Training Center Reaches 25-Year Milestone

Brian Vance, manager of the EM Office of River Protection and Richland Operations Office, addresses the audience at the Volpentest HAMMER Federal Training Center’s 25th anniversary celebration. The facility began as a management-labor partnership focused on the safety and health of workers and emergency responders.

RICHLAND, Wash. – The Volpentest HAMMER Federal Training Center recently commemorated its 25th year of operation as EM’s premier hands-on health, safety and emergency response training center.

Managed by EM Richland Operations Office contractor Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, HAMMER stands for Hazardous Materials Management and Emergency Response. It began operations in 1997 as a centralized training location at the Hanford Site for emergency responders and cleanup workers and has expanded over the years to include support to the complex scope of work at Hanford and numerous national programs.

Brian Vance, manager of EM’s Office of River Protection and Richland Operations Office, recognized the facility’s valuable role in supporting the One Hanford cleanup mission during a special event last week celebrating the training center’s silver anniversary.

“HAMMER’s ongoing commitment to realistic, comprehensive training and constant improvement ensures our workforce has the resources and skills to do their jobs safely,” Vance said. “A demonstrated history of adaptability and meeting evolving needs with innovation and leadership means HAMMER will continue to play a key role at the Hanford Site.”

The facility covers an 88-acre campus featuring classrooms, specialized training areas and life-size props. Students are trained in a broad range of skills using hands-on activities and real-life scenarios. The center has logged more than 1 million student days — which is equivalent to the number of days students have been in class at the training center — and 72,000 course sessions in the last 25 years.

“Since the doors opened, our focus continues to be improving worker and emergency responder skills, safety and health through innovative training,” said Paul Vandervert, director of HAMMER. “Our staff, worker trainers and partners ensure we continue meeting the advancing needs of our customers.”

In addition to Hanford, HAMMER also provides expertise to local, regional, national and international programs focused on emergency response, energy restoration, law enforcement, military programs, border security and hazardous material transportation.

-Contributor: MaryAnne Wuennecke

SRS Completes Plutonium Downblending Goal Safely, Ahead of Schedule

A view of the K Area at Savannah River Site, where employees began downblending plutonium in 2016.

AIKEN, S.C. – The Savannah River Site (SRS) exceeded its plutonium downblending goal for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 ahead of schedule as part of ongoing activities to remove the material from South Carolina.

“Exceeding our fiscal 2022 downblending goal ahead of schedule is a testament to our team’s commitment to safe, efficient and secure operations,” said K Area Facility Manager Lee Sims of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the SRS management and operations contractor. “Much of our work in the past few years has been to introduce efficiencies and speed up our processing rates. This shows that our efforts are working.”

Plutonium materials shipped to K Area Complex at SRS are sealed inside a robust configuration of storage and shipping containers. The materials are stored in K Area until they are ready to be downblended.

Downblending is the method used at SRS for the disposition of surplus plutonium. Also referred to as dilute and dispose, downblending involves mixing the plutonium materials with an inert material called adulterant, producing a mixture that can eventually be safely disposed at a geologic repository.

This year, K Area personnel processed a variety of items, many of which provided unique challenges.

“K Area’s accomplishment is more impressive considering the nature of the packaging and risks associated with some of the materials we downblended this year,” Sims said. “Exceeding projected processing rates while handling a variety of materials for the first time builds a great foundation for the program moving forward.”

SRNS employees began downblending plutonium in K Area in 2016.

-Contributor: Lindsey MonBarren 

Oak Ridge’s UCOR Takes Lead to Finish Transuranic Waste Processing

An aerial overview of the Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge. EM constructed the facility in 2003 to address a legacy stockpile of defense-related research waste.

An operator at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center sorts waste using manipulators in a heavily shielded room known as a hot cell. Higher level radioactive waste called remoted-handled transuranic waste requires use of the special equipment to provide distance and shielding from the material.

EM constructed the TWPC in 2003 to address a legacy stockpile of defense-related research waste. TRU waste is artificially made, radioactive elements heavier than uranium on the periodic table.

Workers at the facility receive, process and package two forms of TRU waste: remote- and contact-handled waste. Remote-handled waste has higher radioactivity levels and must be processed using special equipment, while contact-handled waste has lower radioactivity levels and can be processed directly by employees.

After waste is processed at the facility, it is shipped to EM’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico for safe, permanent disposal.

While TWPC employees have processed, repackaged and certified approximately 98% of Oak Ridge’s inventory of legacy TRU waste, the site is steadily working to ship its entire inventory of processed TRU waste to WIPP.

To date, Oak Ridge has shipped 83% of its contact-handled TRU waste and 70% of its remote-handled TRU waste to WIPP.

-Contributor: Susanne Dupes

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