Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)

With top managers stressing the need to remain vigilant, the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management had 101 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 within the past week, continuing a downward trend that started in late January.  The figure, shared via email Thursday by an Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson, reflects a sizable drop from the […]

Construction costs for a new ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could be up to $450 million, pending a recalculation, a Department of Energy official said Monday. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s (WIPP) planned Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) “has a cost range of $400 million up to $450 million,” Janelle Armijo, […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could go offline for a major ventilation upgrade right around the time the Los Alamos National Laboratory starts casting new nuclear weapon cores and generating a slew of new defense transuranic waste, a lab official said Wednesday at the online Waste Management Symposia conference. “As we progress in our nuclear […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Monday formalized a decision to immobilize some 350 kilograms of plutonium used in a Japanese research facility into glass-like cylinders at the Savannah River Site rather than sending the material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency put the official stamp on […]

Construction costs for a new ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could be up to $450 million, pending a recalculation, a Department of Energy official said Monday. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s (WIPP) planned Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) “has a cost range of $400 million up to $450 million,” Janelle Armijo, […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has now logged two straight weeks with confirmed, active COVID-19 cases below the 200 mark. There are 139 confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 within the nuclear cleanup complex, an Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson said by email Thursday morning. That is down from 180 cases last week and […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management still has much work to do on oversight of contracts and operations, the Government Accountability Office said this week in its annual update on high-dollar, “high-risk” issues. The DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which seemed to get a more generous review, “has continued to show leadership […]

With the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico undergoing its regular annual maintenance outage, there were only three shipments of transuranic waste to the underground salt mine during February. Two of the three shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) during the month came from the Los Alamos National Laboratory […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management still has much work to do on oversight of contracts and operations, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday in its annual update on high-dollar, “high-risk” issues. The DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which seemed to get a more generous review, “has continued to show leadership commitment […]

With the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico undergoing its regular annual maintenance outage, there were only three shipments of transuranic waste to the underground salt mine during February. Two of the three shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) during the month came from the Los Alamos National Laboratory […]

During an earnings call this week, BWX Technologies President and CEO Rex Geveden sounded less like a boss disheartened by seeing a $13-billion contract award undone than someone eager to land a bigger payday in the near future. In December, the Department of Energy cancelled the Tank Closure Contract that a BWXT-led team won in […]

Final solicitations for operations and transportation contracts at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., could be out as soon as May, the agency said Thursday. In one of its procurement special notices, the DOE Office of Environmental Management said the final requests for proposals (RFP) will be released “no sooner […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has 180 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 this week, down from 232 last week, and 296 two weeks ago, according to data a spokesperson provided Thursday. At the Savannah River Site in South Carolina there are 67 employees currently quarantined with COVID-19, according to a website run […]

Germantown, Md.-based Amentum recently marked its first full year as a privately-held company after being spun off by Los Angeles-based AECOM. On Jan. 31, 2020, AEMCOM closed on the $2.4 billion sale of its AECOM Management Services division to affiliates of New York-based investment firms Lindsay Goldberg and American Securities LLC. The new owners re-christened […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s weekly total of confirmed active cases of COVID-19 dropped to 232 this week, down from 296 last week, a spokesperson said in a Thursday email. The confirmed number of cases for the week before that was 335. The Environmental Management (EM) office has seen its number of […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received 20 shipments of transuranic waste during January, which represents its highest monthly total since October, according to the facility’s online waste information database. There were 12 shipments from the Idaho National Laboratory and eight from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. […]

An article in the Feb. 16 edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing (“New Mexico Hearing on WIPP Shaft Set for May”) should have said that May 17 is the date for the hearing on the planned new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received 20 shipments of transuranic waste during January, which represents its highest monthly total since October, according to the facility’s online waste information database. There were 12 shipments from the Idaho National Laboratory and eight from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. […]

The New Mexico Environment Department plans consider the Department of Energy’s plan to sink a new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a Zoom hearing on May 17, an environmental activist told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. The first day of the hearing will run from 12 noon through 4 p.m. Mountain Time […]

An article in the Feb. 9 Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“DOE Moves Closer to Cleaning Up Major Transuranic Tranche at Idaho”] should have reported that shipment of 5,700 cubic meters of transuranic waste remaining in interim storage at the Idaho National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is expected to take […]

There were as of Thursday 296 active, confirmed cases of COVID-19 among personnel in the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, which is 39 fewer than the previous week’s total of 335. The figure, provided Thursday by an Environmental Management (EM) office spokesperson, marks several weeks of mostly steady decreases in the active cases […]

New Mexico will hold hearings soon about restarting excavation of a new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, the Department of Energy’s manager for the transuranic waste disposal site told state lawmakers in a virtual briefing Tuesday. In addition, the facility should emplace more shipments of transuranic waste in the next […]

The Department of Energy expects to treat the remainder of transuranic waste, held in interim storage at Idaho National Laboratory by the end of year, a DOE official in Idaho said recently.  Of the 65,000 cubic meters of material shipped to Idaho from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado between 1970 and […]

After disposing of only 192 shipments of transuranic waste during 2020, the Department of Energy expects the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will receive many more over the next 12 months as the COVID-19 pandemic gradually subsides. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could receive up to 325 shipments of transuranic waste for disposal between Feb. […]

The end is within sight for the Department of Energy’s effort to treat 65,000 cubic yards of transuranic waste, held in interim storage at Idaho National Laboratory, to the Waste isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Of the material shipped to Idaho from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado between 1970 and […]

New Mexico will hold hearings in the coming weeks about restarting excavation of a new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, the Department of Energy’s manager for the transuranic waste disposal site told state lawmakers in a virtual briefing Tuesday. Reinhard Knerr, the DOE’s manager of the Carlsbad Field Office that […]

The New Mexico Court of Appeals has been briefed on a lawsuit brought by citizen groups challenging modifications made in December 2018 by the Department of Energy to the method used to calculate waste volumes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, one of the parties said by email Sunday. The case is now […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) will leave the Senate Armed Services Committee and join the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, keeping intact an important legislative shield for nuclear sites in the Land of Enchantment. I’m looking forward to serving as Vice Chair of the Joint Economic Committee as well as a member of the Appropriations Committee. I’ll also […]

A standard box of transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, stuck at a commercial site in Texas since 2014, has been approved for shipment to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. When that waste box is shipped there will be 74 remaining at Waste Control Specialists, Brian McGovern, […]

There are currently 335 active COVID-19 cases within the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup complex this week, a spokesperson said Thursday. The number, provided via email by a DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson, is 56 fewer than the prior week’s total of 391 active confirmed cases. It is also well below the 423 […]