CLEANING UP US LEGACY WASTE | COVER STORY
Stepping forward on cleanup
The US DOE’s budget request for 20205 reveals progress on some key projects in cleaning up the country’s legacy nuclear sites.
THE US OFFICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL Management (EM), part of the Department of Energy, has sought less funding in 2025 than in the past two years, after some large projects came to an end. EM was established in 1989 to clean up liquid radioactive
waste, spent nuclear fuel and other nuclear materials, as well as disposing of large volumes of lower-level wastes and managing contaminated soil and water. It also has to deactivate and decommission thousands of facilities that are now surplus to requirements. It is currently working at 15 sites in 11 states including some of the most challenging sites in the US. The Savannah River site had funding of over $1.8bn in
FY 2023 and 2024. In 2025, the DOE has requested $1.6bn, down by 10.6%. That is largely due to changes in pension payments and site administrative activities being re-badged into the National Nuclear Security Administration. Funding will support optimisation of the site’s high level
waste vitrification programme (part of the Liquid Waste Program, LWP) and disposition of decontaminated salt
solution in Saltstone Disposal Units. EM aims to complete the overall LWP by 2037. The LWP will start processing higher curie salt feed
batches through the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) and then implementing use of a ‘Next Generation Solvent’, to remove more caesium, to increase throughput. The SWPF receives radioactive salt from more than 33 million gallons (124,918 m3
) of waste remaining in the 43
waste tanks in the site’s two radioactive ‘tank farms’. In November 2024 the site achieved a milestone when it reached more than 10 million gallons (37,854 m3
) of liquid
waste processed through the SWPF. That came on the fourth anniversary of the start of SWPF “hot commissioning” testing.
The highly radioactive waste stream is sent for
vitrification, while the decontaminated salt solution is sent to the Saltstone Production Facility (SPF). SWPF and End Stream Delivery Project Director Steve Howell said “The Salt Waste Processing Facility is operating more efficiently than before”.
Above: The 2F Evaporator at the Savannah River Site
www.neimagazine.com | February 2025 | 21
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