The U.K. NDA delegation visited Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility earlier this year. From left to right: John Owens, Savannah River Remediation (SRR); Benjamin Rivera, EM Headquarters International Programs; George Matis, SRR; John Clarke, NDA; Jack Craig, DOE Savannah River Site; Pete Lutwyche, NDA Sellafield; and Laurie Judd, Longenecker & Associates.
The U.K. NNL delegation is pictured with EM Office of River Protection (ORP) officials at the Waste Treatment Plant in Hanford. From left to right: Brad Eccleston, ORP; Anthony Banford, NNL; Albert Kruger, ORP; Keith Miller, NNL; Steve Thomson, NNL; and Benjamin Rivera, EM Headquarters International Programs.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Several nuclear related entities from the United Kingdom have become a familiar presence at EM’s headquarters and field offices in recent months, thanks to a growing partnership that promotes information sharing.
EM hosted visitors from the U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), and Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), and contractors such as Magnox Ltd.
The rise in visits stems from the success of the Statement of Intent (SOI) between DOE, NDA, and NNL. The SOI has led to a joint effort that encourages information exchanging among these organizations charged with implementing safe, cost-effective, and rapid cleanup of legacy waste.
Signed in 2007, the SOI is entering its 10th year. It has allowed for successful collaboration between the U.S. and U.K. cleanup programs, which are of similar scale and complexity and benefit from leveraging operational experiences and technologies.
“The International Program strives to develop strong relationships with many partner countries to ensure that DOE is able to apply best international practice to its cleanup effort,” said Ana Han, head of EM’s international programs. “The progress with the U.K. during the past five to seven years has been extraordinary, and we look forward to developing it further as we renew the SOI for an additional five years.”
Most recently, John Clarke, CEO of NDA, and Pete Lutwyche, NDA Sellafield programme director, visited EM headquarters and the Savannah River (SRS) and Hanford sites to tour major projects, including the Defense Waste and Salt Waste processing facilities and tank farms at SRS; and the Waste Treatment Plant, sludge retrieval, tank farm remediation, and deactivation and decommissioning of facilities such as the Plutonium Finishing Plant at Hanford.
In February, NNL officials met with EM Office of River Protection employees and contractors and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory representatives to discuss technical topics such as waste vitrification.
Late last year, a group from ONR, NDA, and Magnox spent two days at the Richland Operations Office to learn more about EM’s approach to the interim safe storage (ISS) of reactors and apply EM’s lessons learned to the U.K.’s ISS program.