White: 'The progress realized in 2022 sets EM up well for even greater success in the future'

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management published its 2022 Year in Review video on Dec. 20, highlighting many of the accomplishments and priorities undertaken by EM and other related offices.

EM is nearing a crossroads after more than 30 years of environmental risk mitigating efforts, according to a DOE news release. This shift will focus on "some of the toughest and most expensive challenges."

"I am proud of all the work done this year across EM to begin clearing the decks of some of the last longstanding challenges facing the program,” EM Senior Advisor William “Ike” White said in the release. “The progress realized in 2022 sets EM up well for even greater success in the future as cleanup progress sets the stage for stewardship, restoration and enduring economic growth.”

Some of the highlighter accomplishments include the EM Los Alamos Field Office completing 52 transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Plant; the Hanford Site starting the first-ever large-scale treatment of waste from large underground storage tanks with the commencement of Tank-Side Cesium Removal System operations; finishing the construction of a protective enclosure around the K East Reactor; and the Savannah River Site treating more than two million gallons of tank waste and removing approximately 3.7 million curies from said waste.