Energy.gov

WASHINGTON, D.C. – EM entered 2013 with a bold transition to a more user-friendly public website, http://energy.gov/em.

Check out our favorite energy-related photos!

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – In the first year of accelerated transuranic (TRU) waste shipments, Los Alamos National Laboratory shattered its own record and became one of the largest shippers of this type of nuclear waste in the country.

“Our goal was to transport 184 shipments of waste during the first year of an accelerated schedule, and we surpassed that by nearly 60 shipments,” said Dan Cox, deputy associate director of environmental programs at the Lab.

Los Alamos’ previous record was 171 shipments, set last year.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – A waste retrieval facility constructed over a former buried radioactive waste disposal cell, known as Pit 9, at the Idaho site has been repurposed for treating 6,000 drums of sludge waste left over from the Cold War weapons program.

LAS VEGAS, NV – For decades, the Nevada Site Office (NSO) has been investigating, characterizing, identifying, and performing corrective actions in areas contaminated by historical nuclear research, development and testing.

More recently, the NSO consolidated this body of work into a single, accessible information repository for stakeholders.

AIKEN, S.C. – For more than two decades, Shelly Wilson has been working with the Savannah River Site (SRS) as an employee of South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC). For the past seven years she has worked as the SCDHEC Federal Facilities Liaison. In this role, Wilson ensures the state and EM program at SRS work collaboratively, and she says she applies pressure where needed to drive down risks.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – What a difference a year makes.

In 2012, DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (EM) surged ahead on the agency’s largest-ever demolition project, the K-25 building. Due to effective federal oversight, and the efficient work of the site’s prime contractor, URS|CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), the 44-acre Manhattan Project-era superstructure is disappearing quickly.

RICHLAND, Wash. – The Office of River Protection (ORP) has completed retrieval of radioactive and chemical waste from the tenth underground waste storage tank at the Hanford site.

MOAB, Utah – The Moab mill tailings removal project in Utah ended the year having shipped more than 35 percent of the total 16 million tons of uranium mill tailings off-site.

The tailings are being transported by rail 30 miles north to a disposal cell for permanent storage. More than 1 million tons of tailings were shipped during fiscal year 2012, which closed at the end of September.

NEW ORLEANS – EM and stakeholders met to discuss and collaborate on issues impacting nuclear cleanup across the complex. More than 150 people traveled to New Orleans for the 11th combined Intergovernmental Meeting with the DOE.