Gone from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is legacy radioactive waste that had been stored there for more than 50 years, thanks to continued cleanup progress from the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and contractor UCOR.
Office of Environmental Management
April 15, 2025
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Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management team members used a multi-layered containment system to safely ship processed waste out of state for permanent disposal.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Gone from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is legacy radioactive waste that had been stored there for more than 50 years, thanks to continued cleanup progress from the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and contractor UCOR.
Employees at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center recently completed processing and shipment of a highly radioactive source, comprised of the isotope radium-226 and boron, out of state for permanent disposal.
“Completing this task is a significant risk reduction accomplishment,” OREM Project Manager Mike Vestal said. “This effort, and others like it, are enhancing safety at the site by steadily removing inventories of legacy waste.”
The material was used in experiments at ORNL in the 1970s. The experiments helped scientists understand the structure of the atomic nucleus, and the forces that hold it together.
Employees at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center process the highly radioactive source to prepare it for shipment and disposal out of state.
Due to the level of radioactivity, crews used a multi-layered containment system to ship the processed material for disposal. They placed the source in a vessel, which they inserted into a 55-gallon drum. Crews then placed that drum inside a larger drum.
Team members then packaged the drum in a transportation cask for shipment to the disposal site. The cask offered a specialized configuration engineered to provide superior shielding against radiation and ensure containment even under severe accident scenarios during transit.
“Packaging a radioactive source like this one requires considerable expertise and a knowledge of the packaging protocols required to provide protection from radiation during transit and ultimate disposal,” Patrick Rapp, Transuranic Waste Processing Center area project manager, said. “The team did an outstanding job in preparing the shipment, following all regulations with the safety of workers and the public in mind.”
Workers at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center retrieve, treat and package transuranic and low-level waste for compliant offsite disposal. Oak Ridge’s transuranic waste, which is comprised of human-made elements heavier than uranium, was generated from decades of research, primarily at ORNL.
Teams at the facility have processed 98% of Oak Ridge’s inventory of contact-handled and remote-handled transuranic debris waste. They have also shipped 94% of the contact-handled waste and 78% of the remote-handled waste for disposal.
-Contributor: Michael Butler
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