PEOPLE – On July 27, the U.S. Department of Energy released a report confirming that on July 3, a wasp nest with “legacy contamination” on a stanchion was near a tank at the Savannah River Site.
Despite the nest having a radiation level 10 times higher than federal regulations allow, the organization stated that no wasps posed a threat to the public.
“The wasp nest was sprayed to kill wasps, then bagged as radiological waste. The ground and surrounded area did not have any contamination,” the report said.
“The delay in reporting was to allow time for reviewing previous wildlife contamination for consistency in reporting criteria. No further action was required in the field. There is no impact from event on other activities and operations,” the U.S. Department of Energy continued.
Legacy radioactive contamination means lingering radioactive contamination comes from prior activity, per WYFF4.
Employees find solution to improve spent nuclear fuel processing at Savannah River Site
Primary Media Contact: DOE Media Contact:
Lindsey MonBarren, Monte Volk
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions 803.952.8283
803.645.5455 [email protected]
[email protected]
For Immediate Release
AIKEN, S.C. (July 28, 2025) – Employees at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) have demonstrated their resourcefulness and unique capabilities by implementing a newly created carrier to transport spent nuclear fuel, reducing the time needed to process the material for permanent disposal in coming years.
Engineers and operators of an underwater basin at SRS where the fuel is stored recently redesigned carriers used to transport and store a special type of the material. The carriers now have a different material alloy, or aluminum, which more easily dissolves, reducing the time needed for fuel disposition in the site’s H Canyon chemical separations facility.
Spent nuclear fuel from the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee is sent to SRS to be processed for eventual disposal. HFIR is the highest flux reactor-based source of neutrons for research in the U.S. using highly enriched uranium.
Under an approach called Accelerated Basin De-inventory, SRS will dissolve the fuel at H Canyon and send it through the site’s liquid waste program to be vitrified and safely stored onsite until a federal repository is identified. This approach will accelerate the disposition of spent nuclear fuel at SRS by more than 20 years and result in savings of more than $4 billion.
As part of that process, the fuel is placed in casks using the specially designed carriers and sent by rail to H Canyon for processing.
HFIR fuel is shaped differently than other types of spent nuclear fuel. The HFIR fuel has the form of a cylindrical core rather than a long tube, or bundle, according to Spent Fuel Project Operations Manager Tristan Downey with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the Site’s managing and operating contractor.
“To use our existing rigging and cranes to remove it from the basin water, the cores are placed on special carriers. The core basically acts as the ring while the carrier is the base that goes through the middle,” Downey said. “The carrier has a bail on top that allows us to pick up the whole unit, transport it underwater to the cask and transfer it to the waiting train cars while maintaining the proper shielding for operators.”
