Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project

Since 2005, Bechtel and partner BWX Technologies have managed and operated the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project in Idaho Falls, Idaho—the Department of Energy’s (DOE) most advanced radioactive waste treatment facility. Work at the project includes the retrieval, identification, treatment, packaging, and shipment of radioctive and chemically contaminated waste from the site to federal and commercial facilities for permanent disposal.

Waste originally was sent to the Idaho site during the 1970s and 1980s from DOE’s Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver, Colorado. The waste includes industrial debris such as rags, work clothing, machine parts, and tools, as well as soil and sludge contaminated with transuranic radioactive elements, primarily plutonium. In addition to the radioactive contamination, most of the waste is also contaminated with hazardous chemicals.

The waste is stored in  large boxes and drums. Their contents are identified, using radiography, gamma spectrometry, coring, and headspace gas samples. The radioactive transuranic waste is repackaged and shipped by truck to the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for permanent disposal.

Over the past five years, the AMWTP team has treated and shipped more radioactive waste than any other site in the DOE complex—and is nearly three years ahead of schedule.