Los Alamos

The National Nuclear Security Administration has released a draft request for proposals for the next management and operations contract for its Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency is inviting prospective bidders to submit questions and other feedback on the document by 11 a.m. EDT on July 26, to SEB7@nnsa.doe.gov. Responses […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory has reportedly fired an employee following the finding that special nuclear material was mistakenly been shipped by air cargo instead of by ground, in violation of federal regulations. The National Nuclear Security Administration said late last month that LANL shipped the material to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and […]

After a federal judge blocked Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists’ takeover by EnergySolutions of Salt Lake City, the Texas company is still trying to figure out what to do with more than 100 potentially flammable containers of transuranic waste it is storing for the Energy Department. Asked what the canceled merger means for the company’s contract […]

Stephen Kadenacy on June 30 formally ended his nearly two-year tenure as president and chief operating officer of global engineering firm AECOM, one of the major contractors at Department of Energy nuclear sites around the country. Kadenacy has been with AECOM for nearly a decade, starting as senior vice president for finance in 2008 and […]

Days after the transition was set to start, the Energy Department has yet to announce who will take over the next decade of legacy nuclear cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory under a contract that went out to bid in September. In its final request for proposals, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) advised […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday issued a presolicitation notice for the next management and operations contract for its Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The notice comes just days after the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency said it is investigating the improper shipment of nuclear material from the laboratory to sister sites […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday issued a presolicitation notice for the next management and operations contract for its Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The notice comes just days after the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency said it is investigating the improper shipment of nuclear material from the laboratory to sister sites […]

One of the recently disclosed improper shipments of nuclear material from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico involved 100 grams of plutonium sent to a sister site in California, according to an incident report posted Monday. The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration said Friday that Los Alamos had during the […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory this week was about one-sixth of the way through treatment of dozens of containers of potentially explosive waste, an official with a watchdog organization said Thursday following a visit to the Department of Energy facility in northern New Mexico. Workers as of Wednesday were processing a ninth container of inappropriately remediated […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Wednesday the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility (PF-4) is improving its nuclear criticality safety program, amid reporting this week of ongoing safety issues at the New Mexico site. Perry said during a Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee budget hearing that Los Alamos has “made significant progress with hiring […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Wednesday the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility (PF-4) is improving its nuclear criticality safety program, amid reporting this week of ongoing safety issues at the New Mexico site. Perry said during a Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee budget hearing that Los Alamos has “made significant progress with hiring […]

National Nuclear Security Administration head Frank Klotz has disputed in a new statement a recent investigative report on safety issues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility (PF-4). The Center for Public Integrity in a June 18 article wrote about the 2013 shutdown of operations at the site’s PF-4 due to criticality safety program […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory faced a number of challenges early in its treatment of dozens of containers of potentially explosive nitrate-salt waste, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Workers treated a second barrel of inappropriately remediated nitrate salt waste during the week of May 26, the DNFSB said in its latest inspection […]

The Department of Energy intends to more than double funding in fiscal 2018 for work on the new permanent ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to the detailed budget justification released this week for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. Airflow at the transuranic waste storage mine was reduced drastically […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is reviewing options for the future location of plutonium pit production, an agency official has said, leaving open the door for that capability to potentially be moved away from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. James McConnell, the NNSA’s associate administrator for safety, infrastructure and operation, said June […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board will hold its first public hearing of the Donald Trump administration in Santa Fe, N.M., on Wednesday, when the independent nuclear watchdog will consider the nuclear-safety of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium production program. The hearing, “Understanding the Safety Posture of the Plutonium Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory,” […]

The $88 million top-line increase the Donald Trump administration proposed Tuesday for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management in fiscal 2018 is two-and-a-half times less than the office would spend next year to start decontaminating disused nuclear-weapon facilities now owned by DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The administration’s new budget plan, if […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said Friday it has scheduled a public hearing in Santa Fe, N.M., on June 7 to discuss safety concerns at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s main nuclear production area, the Technical Area 55 Plutonium Facility. The session will begin at 5 p.m. Mountain time and runs through 9:45 p.m. […]

Workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on Wednesday morning sent the first barrel of potentially explosive nitrate-salt waste to the building where it will be cleaned up and prepared for eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a source in New Mexico said. Stephen Hoffman, deputy manager of the agency’s Environmental Management Los […]

Workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on Wednesday morning sent the first barrel of potentially explosive nitrate-salt waste to the building where it will be cleaned up and prepared for eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a source in New Mexico said. Stephen Hoffman, deputy manager of the agency’s Environmental Management Los […]

The Energy Department said its effort to clean up potentially explosive transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico was slowed again last week after the site’s contractor discovered a possible crack in a machine vital to the project. On May 8, workers at the lab’s Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility […]

In a paperwork milestone that speeds but does not clear the way to start treating a potentially explosive stream of transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico will allow the Energy Department to use a forklift as part of the agency’s planned treatment regimen. The state approved forklift use and other elements […]

In a paperwork milestone that speeds but does not clear the way to start treating a potentially explosive stream of transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico will allow the Energy Department to use a forklift as part of the agency’s planned treatment regimen. The state approved forklift use and other elements of […]

Montana-based S&K Logistics has secured a contract worth up to $17.4 million over five years to provide a host of technical and business assistance services for the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s Los Alamos Field Office. The field office oversees cleanup of legacy nuclear contamination and waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in […]

U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command airmen from the service’s bases in Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska on Wednesday launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, the Air Force announced. The operational test involved an unarmed ICBM with a single test re-entry vehicle containing a telemetry package, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. […]

The Energy Department and its contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory might not clean up the stream of waste that leaked radiation into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant three years ago until May due to lingering concerns about the facility in which the waste will be treated. The local Santa Fe New Mexican, citing a […]

Los Alamos National Security, the contractor managing the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, should improve its work planning and control processes, the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments said in a newly released enforcement letter to lab director Charles McMillan. The April 19 letter to the contractor said the Enterprise Assessments office […]

The Energy Department on Wednesday had planned to start treating the troublesome stream of transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that leaked radiation into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant three years ago, but the day came and went without any confirmation that DOE and its contractor had begun the work. An agency spokesperson […]

For the first time in three years, the Energy Department has sent shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico for permanent disposal. Shipments from separate DOE facilities either arrived at WIPP or departed for it this week. One shipment arrived early Monday from the Idaho National Laboratory, while another […]

Waste Control Specialists will retain custody of transuranic waste generated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory under a recently extended contract with Nuclear Waste Partnership: the Energy Department’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. A DOE spokesperson confirmed the contract status Wednesday, but the agency declined to discuss the terms of […]