Idaho Cleanup Project Reaches 20-Year Milestone

The Department of Energy is celebrating a big milestone at the Idaho National Laboratory: Last month marked 20 years since the start of cleanup efforts.

The site was added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund national priorities list in 1989 to protect the Snake River plain aquifer.

Over the past two decades, contractors have disposed of radioactive and contaminated soil, dug up buried nuclear waste and removed three nuclear reactors.

But they’re not done yet.

“Some long-term work as far as managing spent nuclear fuel, those kinds of things,” said DOE spokesman Brad Bugger. “Main thing is getting buried waste taken care of (and) closing underground storage tanks. Those should be done in the near term.”

CWI has been the primary contractor for the Idaho Cleanup Project since early 2006. Bugger said the bulk of remaining work should wrap up around 2020.