October 13, 2020 – Deconstruction and cleanup of the first former uranium enrichment complex in the world is complete, U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette announced Tuesday at an event marking the historic cleanup milestone of the former K-25 site at the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge.

Built secretly in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project, the campus once was home to a complex of facilities that enriched uranium for the world’s first atomic weapon. From 1945 to 1985, the plant produced enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power. The U.S. Department of Energy closed the site in 1987, and facilities fell into a dangerous state of disrepair. Link to article

October 6, 2020 – A facility disposition crew at EM’s West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) recently encapsulated a concrete foundation slab left following the demolition of a utility building. EM and cleanup contractor CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley encapsulated the slab with a water-based coating that forms an impermeable barrier between hazardous or contaminated materials and the environment. The slab no longer presents an asbestos hazard following this work. This practice protects employees from the hazardous material, safeguards against unintended releases, and is required for any work involving asbestos. The former utility building was demolished in September 2020 and was the last ancillary support building to be removed prior to the demolition of the Main Plant Process Building, scheduled for 2021. EM has removed 67 structures at the site. Link to Update

October 5, 2020 – Deep Isolation, a Berkeley, Calif.-based clean tech startup company, aims to solve one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems — the permanent disposal of approximately 490,000 metric tons of radioactive spent fuel that is being temporarily stored at hundreds of sites worldwide.

No spent nuclear fuel anywhere in the world has yet been placed in a permanent repository. In the U.S., there are more than 80,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel currently stored at nuclear reactor sites. Link to article

September 29, 2020 – Due to COVID-19 restrictions that have slowed work for months at the West Valley Demonstration Project, the U.S. Department of Energy plans to begin the open air demolition of the Main Plant Process Building in 2021 rather than this year.

Kelly Wooley, deputy general manager of CH2M Hill BXWT West Valley, the main contractor of the nuclear cleanup at the former spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the town of Ashford, said Wednesday the main plant is about 85% deactivated. Link to article

September 22, 2020 – EM and its stakeholder and industry partners have responded to COVID-19-related challenges that few if any could have foreseen just six months ago, according to participants at the National Cleanup Workshop.

Betsy Connell, EM’s Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regulatory and Policy Affairs, and Dae Chung, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Corporate Services, provided the federal perspective on a panel devoted to EM “hot topics,” including the pandemic response that was activated just shortly after the cleanup industry’s last major gathering, the Waste Management Symposia held in early March in Phoenix. Likewise, industry and community panelists talked about what’s on their plates in light of the current operating environment. Link to Update