The US Department of Energy (DoE) has awarded Westinghouse Savannah River Company an extension valued at $8.4 billion to its contract to manage and operate the Savannah River Site near Aiken,

South Carolina. The company is led by Washington Group International, and also includes Bechtel, BWXT and BNFL. It has managed the SRS since 1989.

The 14,000-employee facility’s primary missions include environmental remediation, waste management, nuclear legacy material disposition, and tritium processing to support the nation’s limited but remaining nuclear weapons stockpile.

Dennis R. Washington, company chairman and chief executive officer said: “Winning this contract extension reflects the exceptional performance of our men and women at Savannah River for the past 11 years.” The extension lasts through to the end of September 2006.

In addition to its on-going national defence and clean-up responsibilities, SVS has been named the DoE site charged with converting the nation’s excess plutonium reserves into material that cannot be used in nuclear weapons. President of Westinghouse Savannah River Company Joseph Buggy said: “DoE’s decision is good news for our employees who have worked on the project for so many years. It is gratifying to know that our team will continue to operate the facility to help the nation – and the world for that matter – with some of its most pressing nuclear challenges.”

Waste processing to begin at Chernobylk

Work on processing liquid waste from Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant is due to begin by the end of 2001, whena new plant to process the water comes on line. Work on the plant began around six months ago. It will cost around US$16 million, and it is funded by the Nuclear Safety Account, a fund supported by various governments and administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development .

The plant will solidify the liquid wast and place it in containers. The liquid has already been partly decontaminated and has been stored in tanks.

Separately, Valeriy Hovorov, a Chernobyl spokesman, says that funds are to be raised to build another plant to process and store solid waste from the plant, which shut down for good in December. The new $37.5 million processing plant will sort, compress and cement solid waste in preparation for long term storage. Hovorov said construction work on the new facility may begin by March this year.

Contaminated land management project launched

A web-based consultation exercise has been the first stage in preparing best practice guidance for sites with radioactively contaminated land. The SAFEGROUNDS project (www.safegrounds.com) is managed by CIRIA, the UK-based Construction Industry Research and Information Association.

SAFEGROUNDS is initially a collaboration between nuclear liability holders and the regulators, contractors and consultants to the nuclear industry but, as it progresses, it will increasingly involve other stakeholders representing public and wider environmental interests.

BNFL to assist clean-up at Rossendorf

BNFL have won a contract worth several million euros with VKTA, operators of the Rossendorf nuclear site near Dresden in Germany, to assist in treating a quantity of radioactive solution of uranyl nitrate being stored at the site.

In line with an agreed programme to decommission the site, the liquid will initially be treated at Rossendorf to make it suitable for transport to Sellafield, where it will be further processed and converted to a solid form, before being returned to Germany for long-term storage.

In parallel with this BNFL has agreed a collaboration using its experience in the handling of nuclear material to assist VKTA in developing solutions for a variety of other nuclear materials currently stored on the Rossendorf site.

CP&L to expand storage capacity

The Nuclear Regulatory Commision has approved a request by Carolina Power & Light (CP&L) to expand the capacity for storage of spent fuel at Shearon Harris by placing two additional spent fuel pools in service.

Sodium disposal plant at Dounreay

The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has commissioned a sodium disposal plant at Dounreay. The plant, which is scheduled to start operating in late summer 2001, will convert 1500t of reactor coolant into saltwater by early 2003.

Ukraine waste sites unsafe

Following inspection of areas on the outskirts of Dneprodzerzhinsk where radioactive wastes have been dumped, the Ukraine Ministry of Emergency Situations has concluded that urgent measures need to be taken. The first wagons of radioactive materials were taken to the outskirts of Dneprodzerzhinsk and emptied there about 50 years ago when production of enriched uranium was launched in the Pridneprovsk Chemical Factory. Since then, about nine nuclear waste burial sites have been opened in and around Dneprodzerzhinsk without proper safety precautions. The facilities store about 36 million tonnes of uranium wastes which emit a total of 75,000Röntgens.

Fuel to be removed from Chernobyl in 2003

Nuclear fuel from Chernobyl will be removed in 2003 once the SVYaP-2 storage facility has been built. The facility will be able to accommodate 25,000 fuel assemblies, 3000t of spent fuel and 3000 absorption rods for about a century.

The E56.4 million project is funded by the Nuclear Safety Account managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.