Just over 400 legacy transuranic waste containers remain at the Savannah River Site after workers there have sent more than 35,000 of them to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for disposal since the underground repository opened in 1999.
Office of Environmental Management
May 27, 2025
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AIKEN, S.C. — Just over 400 legacy transuranic waste containers remain at the Savannah River Site (SRS) after workers there have sent more than 35,000 of them to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico for disposal since the underground repository opened in 1999.
U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management workers at the Solid Waste Management Facility (SWMF) at SRS are working to prepare the remaining waste drums for shipment to WIPP. They are the most challenging to ready for shipment due to factors such as the types of materials contained in them and the radioactivity levels of the waste.
SWMF Deputy Facility Manager Jonathan Hall with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the SRS management and operations contractor, said different criteria were used to segregate transuranic waste as it was created and packaged for disposal when operations began at SRS in the 1950s — decades before WIPP opened with limits in place for waste emplacement.
“It was put into drums or waste boxes as it was created to meet the rapid pace in which the site was producing materials,” Hall said.
Operators at the Solid Waste Management Facility at the Savannah River Site are removing waste drums from overpacks to separate drums ready to be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from those that are not yet ready for shipment. The overpacks are standard waste boxes containing a group of drums. They perform removal activities in a plastic hut, using full personal protective equipment.
However, WIPP requires transuranic waste packages meet current limits and standards before the waste repository will accept the packages for disposal. SWMF workers are removing waste drums from overpacks, which are standard waste boxes containing a group of drums, to separate drums ready to ship to WIPP from those that are not yet ready for shipment.
“As legacy containers continue to ship, it becomes increasingly more difficult to group and certify containers due to variables associated with the type of materials contained, availability of historic documentation, container integrity and plutonium equivalent curies limits,” Hall said. “In order to ship as much transuranic waste offsite as quickly as possible, we have focused on waste containers that have been readily certifiable. Now we are challenged with the more difficult containers.”
Dealing with such challenging transuranic waste containers requires strategic planning, coordination and procedure changes to ensure the waste meets WIPP shipment criteria, according to Hall.
SRNS President and CEO Dennis Carr commended SWMF employees.
“SWMF has a long history of strong operational performance and delivering on the job safely and efficiently,” Carr said. “SRNS is proud of our efforts to remove the inventory of transuranic waste from SRS with more than 1,740 total shipments completed to date from the Solid Waste Management Facility.”
-Contributor: Lindsey MonBarren
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