Savannah River marks the closure of another legacy waste tank

The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management has received concurrence from regulators that Tank 14 at the Savannah River Site has reached preliminary cease waste removal (PCWR) status after radioactive liquid waste was successfully removed from the tank. PCWR is a regulatory milestone in the closure of SRS's old-style waste tanks, which were built in the 1950s to store waste generated by the chemical separations of plutonium and uranium.

Tank 14 has become the eighth old-style underground legacy waste tank at SRS to reach PCWR in under two years. Tank 3 received PCWR approval in September 2025.

DOE-EM Assistant Secretary Tim Walsh, who marked the tank closure milestone during his recent visit to SRS, said the site's liquid waste program is a testament to the integrated approach to the department's cleanup mission. "It's really a model for what is the art of the possible and what is being accomplished to speed up our mission here," he said.

History: According to government records, Tank 14 is a 1-million-gallon, Type II tank located in the site's H Area that was used for the storage of high-heat waste. Placed into service in 1957, the tank was found to be leaking waste into the secondary annulus space by 1959. Waste levels in the tank were reduced to stop the leaking.

Policy: PCWR designates an agreement among the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the DOE that, based on preliminary information, there is reasonable assurance that performance objectives for tank closure will be met, the DOE noted.

This tank closure milestone is outlined in SRS's Federal Facility Agreement, which establishes a procedural framework, including liquid waste tank milestone agreements (such as the schedule for waste removal and operational tank closures), and other site cleanup priorities.

According to DOE-EM, all PCWR milestones have been met by the office's liquid waste contractor, Savannah River Mission Completion, years ahead of the Federal Facility Agreement schedule.

Next steps: Having reached PCWR, work can now begin on the sampling and analysis phase in the tank closure process. This phase will verify that the tanks are ready to be closed on the basis of laboratory analysis of any remaining material and final residual volume determination prior to stabilization and final isolation of the tanks.

According to DOE-EM, Tank 14 will be one of the first tanks to use drones exclusively for final characterization sampling. Tank 14 was previously inspected and mapped using drones, and DOE-EM said that the use of drones instead of tethered robotic crawlers for tank inspections and sampling saves DOE-EM four weeks and $700,000 per tank.

Quote: "Removing the waste from eight old-style tanks ahead of schedule reduces the risk of the remaining waste and delivers on the department's commitment to accelerate cleanup," said the DOE's Savannah River Operations Office manager Edwin Deshong, adding that achieving PCWR for the tanks are key deliverables to state and federal regulators and reflect the accelerated risk-reduction approach to waste removal at SRS.