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IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – The Accelerated Retrieval Project I (ARP I), an effort to identify and exhume specific buried waste from a waste repository at the DOE Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site, began in January 2005.

DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state of Idaho signed a record of decision to clean up a pit within a waste repository at the DOE Idaho National Laboratory Site using a chemical extraction process, which later proved unsuccessful.

Environmental monitoring near a waste repository originally named the “burial ground” at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site officially began in 1960 when the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began drilling wells at the landfill perimeter.

Following several buried waste exhumation projects in the 1970s, the DOE Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site tested technologies to allow for a larger waste retrieval effort and attempt to minimize the spread of contaminated soil.

Just months after the Experimental Breeder Reactor-I began generating electricity in December 1951 in a historic first, the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site opened its first waste repository on the 890-square-mile Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) site.

DOE EM and State of Idaho officials gathered at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site to mark the completion of a high-priority cleanup project that helps protect the Snake River Plain Aquifer and maintains a commitment with the state of Idaho.

EM's fiscal year (FY) 2023 budget request of $7.64 billion reflects the strong commitment to clean up the environment in communities that historically supported or continue to support nuclear weapons programs and government-sponsored nuclear research.

The first batch of approximately 200,000 gallons of tank waste has been treated by the Hanford Site’s Tank-Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) System and is staged in a double-shell tank for immobilization in glass.