Department of Energy Shows Idaho State and Local Officials Nuclear Waste Cleanup Progress
The U.S. Department of Energy said on November 3 that Idaho state legislators and local and regional officials from eastern Idaho recently toured the Idaho Cleanup Project to see how the cleanup protects people and the environment while meeting the commitments of the 1995 Idaho Settlement Agreement. The visitors saw crews exhuming targeted buried legacy waste from a Cold War-era burial ground to reduce risk to the underlying Snake River Plain Aquifer; the waste is packaged and certified, then shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for permanent disposal.
The group also visited the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center, where workers demonstrated how used nuclear fuel from historic fuel reprocessing is safely held in indoor and outdoor storage areas. In recent years, cleanup crews reached a milestone under the agreement by transferring used nuclear fuel from wet storage to safer dry storage, preparing it for an offsite repository and supporting research at Idaho National Laboratory. Idaho Cleanup Project Manager Nick Balsmeier said tours like this let the Energy Department show the results of the Idaho cleanup firsthand and demonstrate that the department takes its responsibilities seriously, and he thanked the community for its continued support.
(Source: U.S. Department of Energy)
Source: U.S. Department of Energy
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：能源部爱达荷清理项目作业现场（美国能源部，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons）。 / Photo: Work at the Department of Energy's Idaho Cleanup Project (U.S. Department of Energy, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).
