Aug. 7--Thousands of drums of uranium are headed out of the Savannah River Site to long-term storage in Utah.

The 14,800 drums of Savannah River Site waste, depleted uranium oxide (DUO), will be shipped using 52 DOE-owned gondola railcars and then disposed of at an EnergySolutions Inc.'s Tooele County facility about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City, Utah.

The shipments, which will take place over a 14-month period, are in the hands of Cavanagh Services Group Inc, a Salt Lake City-based radioactive waste shipment and disposal company. The EnergySolutions site has buried 49,000 tons of depleted uranium waste from past cleanups nationwide over the last 18 years.

Mid-July, the Savannah River Operations Office (SRO) announced the award of the $3.4 million contract to Cavanagh for the shipping of the DUO containers. The work is part of the $1.6 billion American Reinvestment and Recovery Act project at SRS.

The new shipments of waste to the Western state come as state representatives debate a moratorium on new shipments of the radioactive material.

Depleted uranium is classified as the least dangerous type of low-level radioactive waste and has been disposed of for 18 years at the EnergySolutions' facility.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has acknowledged, however, that the material is different than other low-level waste because it becomes more radioactive over time for hundreds of thousands of years. The NRC is studying whether new rules are needed for its disposal.

EnergySolutions believes there's no need for a moratorium. The company has voluntarily asked state regulators to amend its license to require additional safeguards for depleted uranium, which company officials believe will meet or exceed any new rules the NRC develops for the material's disposal.

Contact Mike Gellatly at mgellatly@aikenstandard.com.

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