ECA Update: December 30, 2014
Published: Tue, 12/30/14
Manhattan Project National Historical Park includes Hanford, Los Alamos, Oakridge
Oregon Live
December 23, 2014
Legislation signed by President Barack Obama on Friday created the long-planned Manhattan Project National Historical Park in the states of Washington, New Mexico and Tennessee.
Working in secret during World War II, scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and others led thousands of workers to build a nuclear reactor and assemble the atomic bomb. The legislation authorizes the proposed park, which would be located in all three states.
While the National Park Service will interpret the sites for the public, the U.S. Department of Energy is responsible for ensuring safety, environmental remediation and historic preservation of its Manhattan Project properties, and access to the properties.
This is the process going forward, according to the website atomicheritage.org:
The formation of the park will take some time while the Department of the Interior, through the National Park Service, works with the Department of Energy to acquire facilities.
Establishment of the park requires that sufficient land or interests in land be acquired from eligible areas that include Oak Ridge, Tenn., Los Alamos, N.M., and and Hanford, Wash. The park can also take shape after the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Energy enter into an agreement to govern their respective roles in administering the facilities and lands under DOE administrative jurisdiction that are to be included in the park.
Any such agreement must give the Secretary of the Interior decision making authority for the content of historic interpretation of the Manhattan Project for purposes of administering the park, and ensure that the agreement provides an appropriate role for the National Park Service in the preservation of the historic resources covered by the agreement.
The Secretary of Energy must ensure that the agreement protects public safety, national security and other aspects of the ongoing mission of DOE at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Hanford Site and Oak Ridge Reservation. DOE shall retain responsibility for any environmental remediation and structural safety that may be necessary in or around the facilities or land.
The law directs the Secretary of the Interior to consult with interested state, county and local officials, organizations and interested members of the public before executing any such agreement and in developing the general management plan.
The act authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to provide interpretive tours of historically significant Manhattan Project sites and resources in Tennessee, New Mexico and Washington state that are located outside the boundary of the park.
Park land acquisition will only be through eligible transfer of administrative jurisdiction from DOE by agreement with the National Park Service, or purchase from willing sellers, donation, or exchange.
Look for full details at atomicheritage.org.
The defense spending bill passed by Congress and signed by the president on Friday included one of the biggest expansions of the national park system in years.
The creation of the park is expected to bring thousands more visitors to the B Reactor at Hanford, just outside the Tri-Cities. The reactor was the first full-scale nuclear reactor and was built during World War II.
The B Reactor, which produced plutonium for the first and third atomic bombs, is currently designated as a National Historic Landmark. Elevating the B Reactor's status to a National Historical Park allows for increased public access to the historic reactor.
In 2013, the B Reactor attracted more than 10,000 visitors representing all 50 states and nearly 50 countries. It is estimated by the staff of Visit Tri-Cities that the Manhattan Project National Historical Park will draw more than 100,000 visitors annually when it is opened within the next five years.
"There is a lot of hope that during the talks the National Park Service will include the other complimentary facilities, like the White Bluffs Bank, Hanford High School and Bruggeman Warehouse, in addition to the B Reactor," said Holly Siler, marketing director of Visit Tri-Cities, in an email. "The locals believe seeing the 'pre-Manhattan' town sites really aid in the overall story telling process."
Hanford tours can be reserved at hanford.gov/page.cfm/HanfordSiteTours, when the schedule is announced in early 2015. Tours start around April 1.
Another provision in the new law, pushed for years by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., would allow the public to reach the windswept summit of Rattlesnake Mountain on the Hanford Reach National Monument.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now bars access to the 3,600-foot mountain. Native tribal members, who are allowed at the summit as their traditional cultural property, have opposed letting others up.
Yet another effect in Washington was a redrawn boundary of the Stephen Mather Wilderness and North Cascades National Park to allow reconstruction of a road in the Stehekin Valley without violating wilderness rules.
A flood in 2003 destroyed 10 miles of road upstream of Stehekin, the community at the upper end of Lake Chelan and reachable only by boat, air or by foot.
The National Park Service concluded that rebuilding Stehekin Road along the existing corridor was not feasible, due to concerns with future flooding. The agency said relocating the road into the wilderness also had problems because of northern spotted owl habitat and wetlands.
Congress chose to redraw the wilderness boundary to allow a suitable site for building the road.
How Should the U.S. Handle Its Nuclear Waste?
The Wall Street Journal Blogs
December 29, 2014
An enduring challenge facing U.S. nuclear power revolves around a simple question: What should we do about the waste this process produces? To get some insights, we put this question to a group of energy experts--including a former head of the Environmental Protection Agency and a leader of the energy practice at the Boston Consulting Group. Their thoughts are below.
This discussion relates to the latest Wall Street Journal Energy Report and formed the basis of a discussion on The Experts blog in November.
How Politics Undermines U.S. Nuclear-Waste Policy
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: Currently, used fuel is safely stored on-site at nuclear energy facilities around the country. The fuel is most often stored in dry cask--for every 10 tons of used fuel, facilities use 100 tons of concrete and steel to form a structure designed to protect the fuel. These structures are in fact so safe that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently concluded that they can be used to safely and securely store used fuel for anywhere from 60 years, 100 years, to even longer until a permanent repository is ready. But even though the current storage system for used fuel is safe, it was never intended to be the permanent solution.
The debate around used nuclear fuel storage is a classic example of Washington putting politics over public policy.
For decades, our country had a plan. We evaluated, tested and then built a permanent used fuel storage facility at Yucca Mountain, fully funded by industry.
But politics in the U.S. Senate resulted in the project being defunded after decades of work. This action was so egregious that a federal appeals court ruled that studies related to the project had to move forward regardless of attempts at political interference.
The first of these studies was released last month and it said what many have been saying for year--based on independent and sound science, the NRC found that Yucca Mountain is an appropriate site for permanent storage of our used fuel.
But Yucca Mountain is only part of the story.
Innovators across the country are developing next-generation nuclear technology that will reduce and even consume used fuel. These entrepreneurs are examples of how we can overcome some of our most pressing energy challenges when we apply American ingenuity and technology. Other countries, such as France, have also explored and embraced a fuel-recycling program, dramatically reducing the amount of used fuel that needs to be stored.
As we move forward on tackling the used fuel storage issue we should spend more time talking about solutions and less time on politics.
Christine Todd Whitman was governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001 and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2001 to 2003. She is currently president of Whitman Strategy Group, a consulting firm that specializes in helping companies find solutions to environmental challenges.
Let's Finally Get a Permanent Solution to Nuclear Waste
TODD MYERS: The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in my state of Washington was built in the 1940s to refine high-grade plutonium for the atomic bomb. Amazingly, the few pounds of nuclear material for the first atomic test near Alamogordo, N.M., was carried in a briefcase by car and then train the 1,500 miles between the two sites.
Fortunately, the way we handle nuclear material today has changed a great deal, yet there are still problems. Instead of establishing a long-term solution, we continue to count on "temporary" storage solutions. The history of such temporary approaches is poor.
The ongoing cleanup at the Hanford site is a case in point.
When producing plutonium for our nuclear force, the military used a variety of techniques to extract the plutonium. The chemical byproducts of those processes were stored in large vats at Hanford until we built permanent storage. That never happened. Storage vats designed to last 20 years are still in use more than 50 years later and, not surprisingly, there have been leaks. Like "temporary" taxes, nothing seems quite so permanent as the temporary storage of nuclear waste.
The waste problems at Hanford, of course, are related to military use, not energy production. The tale, however, is instructive as the U.S. continues to use "temporary" approaches to store energy-related nuclear waste.
Some apparently hope that by blocking safer and more permanent methods of storing existing nuclear waste they can stop the further development of nuclear energy altogether. No serious effort to reduce carbon emissions can be successful without nuclear power. Even officials in ultra-green Seattle count nuclear energy as part of the city's "carbon neutral" energy portfolio. Such obstruction callously risks wider environmental damage.
It is time for the U.S. to agree upon a permanent and safe way to store nuclear waste. We have the technology and we know it can be done. Continuing to rely on "temporary" fixes is bad for the environment and climate.
Todd Myers (@WAPolicyGreen) is environmental director at the Washington Policy Center in Seattle and author of "Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism is Harming the Environment." He also serves on the Washington State Salmon Recovery Council.
It's Time the U.S. Deals With Its Nuclear Waste
IVÁN MARTÉN: The U.S. relies on nuclear for approximately 20% of its power. Nuclear is especially important as a source of carbon-dioxide-free base power, meaning plants that run continuously. Despite recently announced shutdowns, nuclear is expected to account for a sizable share of U.S. power over the next 20 years. The U.S. nuclear fleet, the largest in the world, produces approximately 2,000 to 2,300 metric tons of spent fuel each year. Over time, this has added up to a stockpile of approximately 70,000 metric tons. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, "if used fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, this would cover a football field about 7 yards deep."
The Energy Department is supposed to pick up the spent fuel from nuclear operators, who have already paid fuel fees for this purpose. So far, however, the DOE hasn't really done anything, due to decades of technological challenges at Yucca Mountain, a deep geological repository where all spent fuel was supposed to be stored. There has also been a political failure to develop an alternative workable solution. As a result, operators have been forced to store spent fuel at nuclear plants, either in fuel pools or, increasingly, in dry storage. Operators are now in the incredible situation of suing the DOE to recover corresponding costs because the agency has not fulfilled its obligations.
If the development of dry storage at the plant sites has enabled operators to buy some time, it is fundamental that a real solution for the spent fuel be found. This is necessary not only to guarantee the sustainability of the U.S. nuclear fleet, but also to enable appropriate decommissioning of shut plants. Safe solutions exist and need to be properly assessed.
One option is to either revive the Yucca Mountain project or identify alternative sites. Another is to create centralized or regional interim storage sites. The U.S. could also explore technologies for reprocessing spent fuel, which reduce the volume of waste to be disposed and reuse valuable content in the spent fuel.
These actions will require political courage and a push from the nuclear industry. Whatever the solution, the Department of Energy, or any other entity that is responsible for finding a solution, also needs to consider proper contracting and project management schemes to guarantee that projects are successfully executed.
Iván Martén is a senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group, and the global leader of its energy practice.
The Absurd Gridlock Over Spent Fuel
ARIEL COHEN: The most difficult challenge to American civilian nuclear energy is spent fuel.
"Nuclear waste" is small in volume and relatively easy to transport safely. However, the waste remains radioactive for a long period of time. Because of this, spent nuclear fuel management is also politically "radioactive." The U.S. needs to decide whether to reprocess the spent fuel or safely and permanently store it.
So far, we have done neither.
Spent fuel can be reprocessed, using a method that reduces 95% of its volume and radioactivity. The problem with this approach is that it generates plutonium, which can be used for nuclear weapons. Countries with limited space or resources like Japan use reprocessing to make mixed oxide fuel (MOX).
The U.S., however, currently stores its spent fuel around the country--in barrels. Doesn't sound very high tech! The idea is to sequester the radioactive waste until it is safe. Yucca Mountain is a location that has been selected for a national storage facility, but the plan has become mired in the "not in my backyard" politics.
Yucca's stable geology, dry climate, deep water table, remote and restricted location, and closed water basin make this location ideal. Yet, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stood against this measure, and many fear that the recent expansion of the Las Vegas city limits brings it too close to the Yucca Mountain site.
There is another option: fast neutron reactors, which can use nuclear waste as a fuel. Most of the spent fuel these reactors consume consists of U-238 which has a higher likelihood of fission when struck with high energy neutrons (hence the name fast neutrons), whereas normal reactors use uranium U-235 isotope because it fissions at lower speeds.
To date, this technology is not economical and has not been deployed in the U.S. The October 2010 Memorandum of Understanding between the energy agencies of Japan, France, and the U.S. to promote the development of fast neutron reactors and related technologies shows an interest in the technology.
In the interim, moving spent fuel for long-term storage should be a top priority.
Ariel Cohen (@Dr_Ariel_Cohen) serves as a senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian studies and international energy policy at the Heritage Foundation.
Energy Department Announces Achievement of Major Cleanup Milestone at Savannah River Site
Department of Energy
December 19, 2014
WASHINGTON - Today, the Department of Energy reached a major milestone in efforts to clean up the Cold War legacy at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, and took a step forward to closing additional radioactive tanks at the site.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz signed a determination today that allows SRS to complete cleanup and closure of the underground liquid waste tanks in the H Tank Farm as they are emptied and cleaned. Prior to the determination, the Department and SRS conducted extensive technical environmental analysis, public review and comment, and consultation with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The State of South Carolina and the Environmental Protection Agency also provided input as part of the review process.
"Today's announcement is an important step in the effort to close tanks at the Savannah River Site, and is a result of hard work and sustained collaboration between partners at the local, state, and federal level," said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. "We are now able to move forward to safely, effectively and efficiently clean up and close these tanks in the H Tank Farm, as we work to achieve the key mission of cleaning up the environmental legacy of the Cold War."
The first tank closed in the H Tank Farm will be Tank 16, which is the only one at Savannah River that historically leaked to the environment. This will be followed by the closure of Tank 12. The determination also allows for the closure of 27 additional tanks after cleaning, following public review and state approval.
Workers have removed more than 99 percent of the waste in Tanks 12 and 16. Next steps include grouting the interiors with a cement-like material to stabilize the tanks and immobilize the remaining residual waste, to minimize future risk and protect human health, safety and the environment.
SRS was constructed in the early 1950s to produce basic materials used in the fabrication of nuclear weapons in support of our nation's defense programs. Tanks 12 and 16, two of the many nuclear facilities constructed at the site to support the United States Cold War effort, were built in the 1950s to store radioactive liquid waste generated through the site's nuclear weapons material processing.
Section 3116 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 establishes the criteria and the process, including consultation with NRC, for making the determination signed by Secretary Moniz.
Nevada, feds to study nuke-waste burial in state
Times Free Press
December 24, 2014
LAS VEGAS -- Nevada and the federal Energy Department announced Tuesday they've formalized a panel to study contentious issues including whether radioactive material from a World War II-era plant in Tennessee will be buried at a former nuclear weapons proving ground north of Las Vegas.
Gov. Brian Sandoval and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced that more than a year of negotiations yielded a signed agreement to continue "senior-level" talks by a group of state and federal employees dubbed the Nevada National Security Site Working Group.
Sandoval called the agreement a milestone achievement, and aides said a conversation that began about shipments from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, broadened into a commitment to address a range of state concerns about what the federal government does at the vast former Nevada Test Site.
"Because that got us together, we were able to reach an understanding on key issues that have been important to the state for decades," said Leo Drozdoff, director of the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and a member of the working group. "We finally have a meaningful dialogue."
Drozdoff and other Sandoval administration officials said the agreement to keep talking didn't represent a softening of the state's staunch opposition to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository at the western edge of the former Nevada Test Site. The 1,360-square-mile secure federal reservation is almost the size of Long Island, New York. It's now called the Nevada National Security Site.
A top priority remains resolving a dispute over whether 403 baseball bat-sized canisters of solid radioactive waste should be buried in 40-plus foot trenches and then topped by shipping containers full of uranium-contaminated worker uniforms, machine parts and other waste overtopped by 8 feet of dirt about 65 miles from Las Vegas.
"We are still in talks with the state on what the next steps on shipments will be," said Darwin Morgan, a security site spokesman in North Las Vegas, said Tuesday. "We are optimistic that we will be able to ship in early 2015."
The materials, about 100 shipments, have been designated by the Energy Department as low-level radioactive waste.
Trucks were ready to roll in mid-2013 when the state balked at the plan, opponents called for a full-scale National Environmental Policy Act review, working group participants began meeting, and the Energy Department began hosting town hall-style public meetings to describe the burial plan.
The six-page Sandoval-Moniz agreement, signed Monday, notes that no new full-scale National Environmental Policy Act review will be required, and that the 2,000-mile shipments would be handled by armed guards from the Office of Secure Transport.
Moniz noted in August 2013 that the state doesn't have jurisdiction over the shipments. But the Energy Secretary said his agency was reshaping plans in response to state concerns, including questions about the safety of transporting the waste in and around Las Vegas.
The agreement pledges to improve communication and information about the security site and to "identify areas of improvement and resolve key concerns."
It mentions solar and geothermal energy technology across the state, and even cites Tesla Motors' planned $5 billion electric vehicle battery factory near Reno.
Key elements include a review "by an independent scientific body" about how radioactive waste is classified, and a promise to provide time to review any proposed changes before they are finalized. It does not identify what body should conduct the review.
WIPP receives additional funding for recovery process
Current-Argus News
December 26, 2014
NEW MEXICO>> U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich announced Monday that the president signed legislation that would give the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant $324 million for the recovery process and normal operations.
The $324 million comes from the "omnibus" appropriations bill, which is the piece of legislation that funds the government, including several of New Mexico's programs for the 2015 fiscal year.
Funding was requested to ensure recovery efforts could continue at the facility, so WIPP can resume operations and start accepting waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory again.
"This is critical funding that is absolutely necessary to move forward with cleanup and recovery at WIPP and so we can resume shipments of waste from Los Alamos," Udall said.
WIPP Recovery Communications contact, Tim Runyon, said that after the budget for the 2015 fiscal year was created, WIPP officials discovered that more than $100 million extra would be needed for recovery.
"This extra funding will help ensure that WIPP maintains the highest level of safety and transparency to protect the workers and community, and keep the recovery efforts moving forward so that safe operations can be restored," Heinrich said.
The Department of Energy released the facilities recovery plan Sept. 30, after two incidents occurred at the WIPP facility in February.
In June, Udall worked to secure funding for WIPP in the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill.
The final appropriations bill provides WIPP with it's original funding request of $220 million, plus the additional $104 million that is solely designated for recovery from the radiological accident in February.
"WIPP is our nation's only permanent repository for transuranic waste, and I will continue to work with the state and the Department of Energy to ensure we get the facility up and running safely soon," Udall said.
DOE works with transuranic waste while NM facility shut down
Oak Ridge Today
December 27, 2014
By Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board
In February 2014, two incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, in New Mexico caused the shutdown of the only facility in the U.S. that permanently disposes of transuranic waste, or TRU waste. That waste is disposed in shafts, or drifts, about a half-mile below ground in an ancient salt bed. Some of that waste has come from Oak Ridge.
After months of investigations into the cause of a truck fire and a radiological release two weeks later, the U.S. Department of Energy released a recovery plan at the end of September that outlines the steps necessary to resume limited waste operations in the first quarter of 2016.
"Key elements of the recovery plan include strengthening safety programs, regulatory compliance, decontamination of the underground, increasing ventilation, mine stability and underground habitability, and additional workforce retraining," according to a statement on WIPP's website.
The recovery plan itself says "the schedule to commence waste emplacement operations is the first quarter of calendar year 2016, with the intent to incrementally increase waste emplacement operations over time. Options are being explored to determine if some actions can be accelerated."
The recovery plan estimates the cost to do everything needed to resume limited operations to be about $242 million, but that doesn't include two additional capital projects to restore WIPP to full operation:
1. a new permanent ventilation system, with an estimated cost range of $65 million-$261 million, and
2. a supporting exhaust shaft, with an estimated cost range of $12 million-$48 million.
The wide range is explained as being preliminary estimates that will be refined as detailed planning is developed and uncertainties are reduced.
DOE Environmental Management in Oak Ridge had been sending TRU waste for disposal at WIPP before the incidents. It was sending two types of TRU: contact-handled, or CH, and remote-handled, or RH. CH TRU can be manipulated directly with proper personal protection. RH TRU is higher activity material and must be handled mechanically.
Of Oak Ridge's original inventory of 1,500 cubic meters of CH, about 97 percent has been processed at the TRU Waste Processing Center, or TWPC, off State Route 95 in southwest Oak Ridge, and about 68 percent of the inventory has been sent to WIPP.
There were about 560 cubic meters of RH TRU at TWPC. About 78 percent has been processed and 25 percent has been shipped.
Disposition amounts include material sent to WIPP and other waste determined to be low-level that is shipped to the Nevada National Security Site or commercial facilities.
"Following the WIPP shipment suspension, we worked with our contractor, Wastren Advantage Inc., to develop and implement a plan that allows continued progress toward meeting our Site Treatment Plan (STP) commitments with the state," said Laura Wilkerson, portfolio federal project director for the TWPC. "The plan for handling TRU in the interim involves continued processing and characterization of CH waste and then using existing storage facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to stage the waste until shipments to WIPP resume."
What to do about RH waste is a little trickier.
"We have very limited storage capacity at the TWPC for RH TRU," Wilkerson said. "That requires us to re-sequence the high dose waste processing and put the near-term focus on processing RH casks with low dose wastes that can be treated as CH."
She said DOE is working on obtaining concrete overpacks that RH waste canisters can be stored in and staged at the lab after the waste has been characterized and processed.
Wilkerson said while STP milestones have been impacted because of the WIPP shutdown, she said DOE has been communicating the situation with the state and believes there is basis for renegotiating the milestones.
Guest column: GAO is looking at Hanford through a microscope
The Bellingham Herald
December 28, 2014
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report last week recommending that DOE look for alternatives for creating new compliant tank space for wastes from the single-shell tanks (SSTs), including the possibility of building new double-shell tanks (DSTs). This report is fairly well done and accurate, but contains no surprises, nor any new information.
Unfortunately GAO's report was specific to a request from Sen. Wyden. And, like Gov. Inslee with the Consent Decree, the study focused singularly on the Hanford tanks.
GAO's recommendations were done in a vacuum, and did not consider any other potentially higher or more immediate cleanup risks on the Hanford site. The GAO report also ignores Congressional budget constraints, which only become more severe in fiscal year 2016. However, if Sen. Wyden thinks he can get additional funding to build new tanks, and gets it, we will applaud him!
The GAO report does not take into consideration other risks at Hanford, such as K-Basin sludge, 324 Building, WESF, or even a waste site just north of the 300 Area called 618-10. K-Basin and 324 building are located just a few hundred yards from the Columbia River. Any tank farm leaks to the groundwater on the Central Plateau are expected to take something on the order of 100 years or more to reach the Columbia River.
K-Basin sludge, on the other hand, is located within a stone's throw of the river, and under a catastrophic accident like a 300-year flood, or major earthquake, it is those areas closest to the river that are most vulnerable and could be the highest risk to the public.
The GAO report gives no consideration to any of these other public risk cleanup sites across the Hanford site, which is why we think they have looked at Hanford cleanup through a microscope, and not through a wide-angle lens that examines the entire Hanford site. We believe such a complete site-wide review of public risks would lead to a different report outcome from GAO.
TRIDEC agrees with the senator and governor that DOE should develop alternate plans for emptying the aging tanks, both SSTs and DSTs. We, too, would like those tanks emptied. However, we also believe a more holistic view of Hanford cleanup, one that evaluates all potential risks across the site, is a far better approach.
We suspect that if Office of River Protection were offered additional funding (with no reductions of budget elsewhere on site), and had their choice, such additional funding would not go toward building new tanks.
DOE's budget balancing job is tough enough without the singular focus on just one contaminated area of the site.
Carl Adrian is the TRIDEC President. Gary Petersen TRIDEC Vice President, Federal Programs.
Oak Ridge Reservation Site-Specific Advisory Board Meeting Notice
Federal Register
December 23, 2014
Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2015, 6pm
Purpose and Agenda:
The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE-EM and site management in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities.
Tentative Agenda
Northern New Mexico Site-Specific Advisory Board Meeting Notice
Federal Register
December 24, 2014
Date: Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 6pm
Purpose and Agenda:
The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE-EM and site management in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities.
Tentative Agenda
Establishment of a Quorum: Roll Call and Excused Absences, William Alexander
Welcome and Introductions, Doug Sayre, Chair
Approval of Agenda and Meeting Minutes of November 19, 2014, and December 10, 2014
Written Reports
Other items
Update from New Mexico Environment Department, Secretary Ryan Flynn
Update from DOE, Pete Maggiore
Update from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Randy Erickson
Savannah River Site Site-Specific Advisory Board Meeting Notice
Federal Register
December 30, 2014
Date: Monday, January 26, 2015, 1pm-5pm
Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 830am-440pm
Purpose and Agenda:
The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE-EM and site management in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities.
Tentative Agenda
o Order of committees:
o Waste Management
o Administrative & Outreach
o Facilities Disposition & Site Remediation
o Nuclear Materials
o Strategic & Legacy Management
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Nevada Site-Specific Advisory Board Meeting Notice
Federal Register
December 30, 2014
Date: Wednesday, January 21, 2015, 5pm
Purpose and Agenda:
The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE-EM and site management in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities.
Tentative Agenda
1. Recommendation Development for Annual Nevada National Security Site Environmental Report--Work Plan Item #5
2. Updates and Recommendation Development for Assessment of the Underground Test Area Quality Assurance Plan Implementation--Work Plan Item #8
3. Recommendation Development for Potential New Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Part B Permitted Mixed Waste Disposal Unit--Work Plan Item #9
4. Recommendation Development for Waste Management Symposia Briefings--Work Plan Item #1
Idaho National Laboratory Site-Specific Advisory Board Meeting Notice
Federal Register
December 30, 2014
Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2015, 8am-4pm
Purpose and Agenda:
The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE-EM and site management in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities.
Tentative Agenda
Excess Uranium Management: Effects of DOE Transfers of Excess Uranium on Domestic Uranium Mining, Conversion, and Enrichment Industries; Request for Information
Federal Register
December 24, 2014
On December 8, 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a request for information (RFI) seeking comment on certain issues related to DOE's plan to issue a new Secretarial Determination covering continued transfers of uranium for cleanup services at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and for down-blending of highly-enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium. The RFI established a January 7, 2015, deadline for the submission of written comments. DOE is extending the comment period to January 22, 2015. |
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