Group items tagged

Darwin Morgan, a federal spokesman at the Nevada Test Site, today confirmed that all restrictions on Perma-Fix Environmental waste shipments had been lifted. In addition to the company's M&EC facility in Oak Ridge, Perma-Fix has waste operations at Richland, Wash., and Gainesville, Fla. "The three sites have met the requirements and are now back as approved generators to send us waste," Morgan said this afternoon.

Perma-Fix Environmental has received the go-ahead to resume shipments of radioactive waste to the Nevada Test Site from its M&EC processing facility in Oak Ridge, but a temporary ban on shipments to NTS remains in effect for the company's facilities at Richland, Wash., and Gainesville, Fla. Larry McNamara, the chief operating officer of Perma-Fix, said today an audit last week at the Oak Ridge facility went well and satisified the previous concerns. M&EC was put on suspension following a September incident in which a container of waste leaked and had rad contamination on its exterior.

The Department of Energy's decision to shut down its Oak Ridge incinerator doesn't mean that less waste will be coming to Oak Ridge. Just the opposite could be the case. With DOE's incinerator out of business by year's end, private companies are expected to pick up the slack in treating difficult waste streams - such as radioactive materials mixed with polychlorinated biphenyls - and some of those companies are in Oak Ridge. Perma-Fix Environmental in March received approval from the Environmental Protection Agency to burn PCB wastes, and Larry McNamara, the company's chief operating officer, said two facilities owned by Perma-Fix will be involved in the broadening waste-treatment program.

Perma-Fix Environmental last month got approval to burn PCB-contaminated rad waste at its Oak Ridge-area facility, and this month received its first shipments. Larry McNamara, the chief operating officer, confirmed that the company's DSSI (Diversified Scientific Services Inc.) facility near Kingston had received shipments from Paducah, Ky., and Richland, Wash., to be treated at the thermal-boiler system. He also said another shipment had arrived, although he didn't have details, and more are in the works. McNamara said the company is ready to accept waste loads that might otherwise be treated at the Dept. of Energy's TSCA Incinerator in Oak Ridge, which is scheduled to close later this year. Some of the waste streams coming to Oak Ridge may need to be segregated at the company's M&EC facility, with the PCB-tainted liquids sent to DSSI for treatment in the thermal boiler, McNamara said. However, he said there are few limits on the types and amounts of wastes that can be treated.

Hanford may have found an efficient way to treat several hundred drums of low-level radioactive waste contaminated with hazardous chemicals and PCBs. Perma-Fix Northwest Richland has applied for a modification of its permit that would allow it to treat waste contaminated with PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, at its facility that now treats low-level waste mixed with other chemicals. A public hearing is planned at 6:30 p.m. April 7 at the Washington State Department of Ecology office at 3100 Port of Benton Blvd., Richland. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., the new central Hanford contractor, has 110 cubic yards of waste containing PCBs with no previous plan for its disposal. There is no technology available on the Hanford site to treat the waste, said Dee Millikin, spokeswoman for CH2M Hill.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina is using a wealth of Recovery Act funding to accelerate cleanup activities and reduce its Cold War stockpile of radioactive waste. Some of that waste, containing radioactive tritium and other contaminants, is coming to Oak Ridge for treatment and packaging before being shipped west to Nevada or Utah for disposal. Two local facilities owned by Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. - Diversified Scientific Services Inc. near Kingston and Materials & Energy Corp. in Oak Ridge - have been hired to treat the so-called mixed waste, which contains both radioactive elements and hazardous chemicals.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina is using a wealth of Recovery Act funding to accelerate cleanup activities and reduce its Cold War stockpile of radioactive waste. Some of that waste, containing radioactive tritium and other contaminants, is coming to Oak Ridge for treatment and packaging before being shipped west to Nevada or Utah for disposal. Two local facilities owned by Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. - Diversified Scientific Services Inc. near Kingston and Materials & Energy Corp. in Oak Ridge - have been hired to treat the so-called mixed waste, which contains both radioactive elements and hazardous chemicals.