Idaho National Laboratory
A Department of Energy national laboratory in eastern Idaho focused on nuclear energy research, reactor testing, and advanced reactor development.
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Cleanup & Remediation
DOE picks No. 2 Brown to succeed Flohr as Idaho cleanup boss
The Department of Energy said Wednesday evening it will promote Mark Brown to become the new cleanup project manager at the Idaho National Laboratory where he will replace Connie Flohr who plans to retire from the agency in April and take a job in industry. Brown is deputy manager of the Idaho Cleanup Project and […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Judge deals blow to Idaho county’s INL lawsuit, leaves door open for refiling
Butte County, Idaho has not shown the Department of Energy’s storage of spent nuclear fuel at Idaho National Laboratory violates the law, but the county may amend its complaint to preserve its lawsuit, a federal district judge ruled last week. U.S. District Court Judge David Nye on Thursday granted DOE’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit […]
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Contracts & Procurement
Jacobs reports strong first earnings after merger announcement
Earnings rose at Jacobs, Dallas, in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, which the global engineering, procurement and construction company attributed partly to international infrastructure projects. Tuesday’s press release marked the first earnings results from Jacobs since the company’s Nov. 20 announcement of a plan to merge its government contracting and cyber business lines with Virginia-based Amentum. […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Judge deals blow to Idaho county’s INL lawsuit, leaves door open for refiling
Butte County, Idaho has not shown the Department of Energy’s storage of spent nuclear fuel at Idaho National Laboratory violates the law, but the county may amend its complaint to preserve its lawsuit, a federal district judge ruled last week. U.S. District Court Judge David Nye on Thursday granted DOE’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit […]
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Contracts & Procurement
Jacobs reports strong first earnings after merger announcement
Earnings rose at Jacobs, Dallas, in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, which the global engineering, procurement and construction company attributed partly to international infrastructure projects. Tuesday’s press release marked the first earnings results from Jacobs since the company’s Nov. 20 announcement of a plan to merge its government contracting and cyber business lines with […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Judge deals blow to Idaho county’s INL lawsuit, leaves door open for refiling
Butte County, Idaho has not shown the Department of Energy’s storage of spent nuclear fuel at Idaho National Laboratory violates the law, but the county may amend its complaint to preserve its lawsuit, a federal district judge ruled last week. U.S. District Court Judge David Nye on Thursday granted DOE’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit […]
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High-Level & Tank Waste
Outage ends, IWTU to start heating up next month, DOE says
The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, offline since September, should start heating up next month and resume treating sodium-bearing radioactive waste in March, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. The extended outage at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), held in part to replace carbon beds used to remove […]
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High-Level & Tank Waste
Outage ends, IWTU to start heating up next month, DOE says
The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, offline since September, should start heating up next month and resume treating sodium-bearing radioactive waste in March, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. The extended outage at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), held in part to replace carbon beds used to remove […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Mega-merger, procurements, protest, SRS and clean-energy loom in 2024
A proposed merger of two industry heavyweights, already partners on about $37 billion worth of Department of Energy nuclear-cleanup contracts, will be among the most-watched issues in 2024 for Weapons Complex Monitor. Virginia-based Amentum plans to merge with the government contracting and cyber wings Dallas-based Jacobs, the two companies announced in October. If the deal […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Idaho cleanup boss Flohr to retire from DOE, take Navarro post
Connie Flohr, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup manager at the Idaho National Laboratory will retire from the federal government and take an industry job, a top executive at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told staff Wednesday. The pending departure of Flohr, a career fed and former budget official who became Idaho cleanup manager in […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Idaho cleanup boss Flohr to retire from DOE, take Navarro post
Connie Flohr, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup manager at the Idaho National Laboratory will retire from the federal government and take an industry job, a top executive at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told staff Wednesday. The pending departure of Flohr, a career fed and former budget official who became Idaho cleanup manager in […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Survey says, current crop of DOE cleanup field managers in place six years or fewer
The looming departure of Los Alamos National Laboratory federal field manager Michael Mikolanis will mark the second swap of Environmental Management field bosses across the Department of Energy’s old weapons complex in a little more than a year. These days, most site feds have a tenure of fewer than six years. These people are the […]
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Transuranic Waste
Idaho TRU shipments rise with full staffing, older drums draw attention
After its waste shipment rate declined briefly due to staffing, the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is again sending about 12 shipments most weeks to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to a recent report. After bosses at the Idaho National Laboratory cut the number of weekly shipments during October to […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Cleanup contractors receive mostly positive reviews from DOE in latest scorecards
With 2023 winding down, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office this week offered a broad overview of how most of its nuclear-weapons cleanup contractors performed during the year. In a widely distributed statement on Tuesday, the Office of Environmental Management shared contractor performance ratings that mostly spanned fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30. […]
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Transuranic Waste
Idaho TRU shipments rise with full staffing, older drums draw attention
After its waste shipment rate declined briefly due to staffing, the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is again sending about 12 shipments most weeks to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to a recent report. After bosses at the Idaho National Laboratory cut the number of weekly shipments during October to […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
IWTU should return to service early in new year, DOE says
With maintenance almost complete, the Department of Energy expects to restart operations of an Idaho National Laboratory treatment facility for radioactive sodium-bearing waste early in 2024. Workers for DOE ‘s Jacobs-led environmental cleanup contractor have replaced mercury-laden beds of granular activated carbon in two vessels of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), which has been […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
IWTU should return to service early in new year, DOE says
With maintenance almost complete, the Department of Energy expects to restart operations of an Idaho National Laboratory treatment facility for radioactive sodium-bearing waste early in 2024. Workers for DOE ‘s Jacobs-led environmental cleanup contractor have replaced mercury-laden beds of granular activated carbon in two vessels of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), which has been […]
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Contracts & Procurement
Supreme Court agrees to vacate ruling against Biden’s contractor vax mandate
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday agreed to vacate a national preliminary injunction against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for federal contractors, after the Justice Department argued the issue became moot when pandemic emergency measures ended this spring. The court Monday granted a petition filed by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in July asking the high […]
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National Laboratories
Wrap Up: EPA focuses on LANL water discharges; INL staffer personal info hacked; Los Alamos county reveals manager finalists
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments between now and Feb. 29, 2024, on storm water discharge rules affecting the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and surrounding areas. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to fix water quality standards violations raised in a petition by a Taos-based water advocacy […]
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Non-Proliferation
Wrap up: Senators concerned with NNSA counterintelligence; hackers hit Idaho Lab; bears at Los Alamos and more
Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and several of his Republican colleagues are raising concerns over a “troubling report on the state of the counterintelligence enterprise” at the Department of Energy and of the subsequent reassignment of Director Steven Black, who led the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence for eleven years. In a Nov. 21 statement, the […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Wrap Up: Hanford disaster drill found lacking; NuSclae has plans for canceled reactors; Pantex bidder vetting underway; Piketon, Ohio mayor Spencer re-elected
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants improvement in emergency response preparation at tank waste pretreatment facility at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions went through a simulated tornado drill last month at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s onsite […]
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Contracts & Procurement
With Jacobs earnings in sight, published report revives talk of Amentum deal
During its quarterly earnings report next week, Dallas-based Jacobs could unveil a deal to sell its government contracting business to the owners of another major player in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex, according to Reuters. Jacobs, an international engineering, construction and procurement contractor, “is in advanced talks” with Virginia-based Amentum, according to “people familiar […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Federal judge in Idaho considers whether to toss county suit over INL waste storage
A judge could decide by December the fate of a lawsuit about the Department of Energy’s years of allegedly illegal long-term nuclear-waste storage near Butte County. After hearing oral arguments Oct. 30 from the county, the state of Idaho and the U.S. Department of Justice on the government’s motion for dismissal of the county’s suit, […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Federal judge in Idaho considers whether to toss county suit over INL waste storage
A judge could decide by December the fate of a lawsuit about the Department of Energy’s years of allegedly illegal long-term nuclear-waste storage near Butte County. After hearing oral arguments Oct. 30 from the county, the state of Idaho and the U.S. Department of Justice on the government’s motion for dismissal of the county’s suit, […]
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Defense Low-Level Waste
DOE takes comment on disposing of calcine storage bins as low-level waste
The Department of Energy is taking public comment until Dec. 12 on its draft finding that certain radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory can be disposed of there as low- rather than high-level waste. The draft document “demonstrates that the Calcined Solids Storage Facility (CSSF) at closure after waste retrieval is not high-level radioactive […]
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Defense Low-Level Waste
DOE takes comment on disposing of calcine storage bins as low-level waste
The Department of Energy is taking public comment until Dec. 12 on its draft finding that certain radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory can be disposed of there as low- rather than high-level waste. The draft document “demonstrates that the Calcined Solids Storage Facility (CSSF) at closure after waste retrieval is not high-level radioactive […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Federal judge in Idaho considers whether to toss county suit over INL waste storage
A judge could decide by December the fate of a lawsuit about the Department of Energy’s years of allegedly illegal long-term nuclear-waste storage near Butte County. After hearing oral arguments Oct. 30 from the county, the state of Idaho and the U.S. Department of Justice on the government’s motion for dismissal of the county’s suit, […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Wrap Up: Moab hits 14 million tons; groups seek EPA nuke waste rewrite; site prep underway for Idaho disposal cell; Portsmouth panel goes live; retired Hanford figure dies
Contractor North Wind Portage has now removed 14 million tons of uranium mill tailings from the Moab, Utah site near the Colorado River, the Department of Energy announced this week. Removing 14 million of the 16 million tons of tailings from the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project is a big step toward remediation […]
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Reindustrialization & Redevelopment
Hanford draft clean energy RFP could be out soon
A draft solicitation for a carbon-free power project at the Hanford Site in Washington state could be released within a month, a senior adviser with the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office said during an online presentation Tuesday. Hanford was the first DOE Office of Environmental Management property to hold a “Cleanup to Clean Energy” […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
DOE lays out timeline for expansion of Idaho lab’s CERCLA landfill
The Department of Energy started site preparation this summer for expansion of a low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Idaho National Laboratory and the prep work should continue into July 2024, an agency official told an advisory panel last week. Construction of the third cell for the landfill should be done around September 2025 with […]











