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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.

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.

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.

AIKEN, S.C. – Santa Claus and his elves are getting a lot of help from DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) this year. Federal employees and contractors donated more than 14,200 toys to support the U.S. Marine Reserves Toys for Tots campaign.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Tracy Mustin this week sought guidance from the Environmental Management Advisory Board (EMAB) on several topics, including optimizing resources for EM’s technology challenges.

WEST VALLEY, N.Y. – EM employees and their contractor counterparts at the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) have supported their local food banks for several years, and this year was no exception.

PADUCAH, Ky. – Environmental sampling data at EM’s Paducah site is now accessible to the public through an enhanced geographic mapping tool on the Internet.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – November is Native American Heritage Month, but every day is an opportunity to learn more about the ethnic and cultural groups with roots that date back thousands of years here in this land that became the United States.