Cleanup & Remediation

The contractor building the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility received less than 9 percent of its possible award fee in its latest performance evaluation, along with a stinging rebuke from the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration. The NNSA on Feb. 21 released to Savannah River Site Watch its fiscal 2016 performance evaluation report and […]

The absence of senior leadership at the Trump administration’s Cabinet agencies threatens to leave contractors without clear policy direction on matters including the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons and cleanup complexes, executives said Tuesday. There is no imminent end in sight to this dilemma, they acknowledged. Panelists at the ExchangeMonitor’s Nuclear Deterrence Summit spoke two […]

By Billy Spencer, Mayor, Piketon, Ohio. Scioto County Commissioner Mike Crabtree is misinformed with respect to the Village of Piketon’s long-held position on the cleanup and redevelopment plan for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) and the need for a third-party independent assessment. He should also know that the Village of Piketon is not alone […]

One of two men accused of stealing more than $4 million from the federal government while working for the Savannah River Site’s MOX program could face up to five years in prison after entering into a plea agreement on Friday. Meanwhile, the other suspect has waived his right to a speedy trial and wants the […]

Demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant might stretch beyond a Sept. 30 regulatory deadline, the manager of the Energy Department’s Richland Operations Office told a citizens group Wednesday. While there is a “high probability we can get it done by the end of this year,” the project might only be “near-done by the […]

Revenue at the BWX Technologies business focused on the Energy Department’s Cold War cleanup program rose more than 15 percent last year as part of a generally strong 2016, the company reported Monday. The Lynchburg, Va., company derives the preponderance of its revenue from its sole-source nuclear propulsion work for the U.S. Navy and reports […]

Uranium sequestration operations near the Columbia River in the Hanford Site’s 300 Area are expanding after a successful test project. Soil had earlier been excavated in places down to a depth of 15 feet in the 300 Area to remove most of the uranium that has put the groundwater at risk of contamination. The hope […]

The Savannah River Site is on pace to meet its fiscal 2017 goal to double-stack and safely store 200 canisters of treated radioactive waste, according to a site official. In October, liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) began stacking canisters of vitrified waste on top of each other in Glass Waste Storage Building 1 […]

Officials and employees on Thursday celebrated retrieving all 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste that was buried under a dirt berm at the Department of Energy’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project in Idaho. Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden attended the event, which honored AMWTP personnel whose job for the past 14 years […]

French nuclear giant AREVA, in the middle of a massive restructuring, said Wednesday it stemmed its corporate losses in 2016 and returned the segment of its business dealing with nuclear cleanup to operational profitability during the year. Overall, the company’s 2016 loss was just under $700 million, a 66-percent improvement compared with 2015’s multibillion loss. Last year, […]

Bechtel National and the Energy Department could have saved about $2 million if they had reached an agreement to cancel orders for equipment the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) did not urgently need, the agency’s inspector general wrote in a new report. Bechtel is building the plant at the site near Richland, Wash., to treat 56 million […]

The absence of senior leadership at the Trump administration’s Cabinet agencies threatens to leave contractors without clear policy direction on matters including the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons and cleanup complexes, executives said Tuesday. There is no imminent end in sight to this dilemma, they acknowledged. Panelists at the ExchangeMonitor’s Nuclear Deterrence Summit spoke two […]

French nuclear giant AREVA, in the middle of a massive restructuring, said Wednesday it stemmed its corporate losses in 2016 and returned the segment of its business dealing with nuclear cleanup to operational profitability during the year. Overall, the company’s 2016 loss was just under $700 million, a 66-percent improvement compared with 2015’s multibillion loss. Last year, […]

Demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant might stretch beyond a Sept. 30 regulatory deadline, the manager of the Energy Department’s Richland Operations Office told a citizens group Wednesday. While there is a “high probability we can get it done by the end of this year,” the project might only be “near-done by the […]

While the Energy Department still has not said which of its cleanup sites will first send waste to the reopened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, recent correspondence between the New Mexico Environment Department and the agency shows DOE has made headway in approving shipments from three of the five sites on its shortlist. In a Feb. […]

British design and project management consultant Atkins has named two nuclear industry veterans to its Atkins Energy Americas engineering and technology (E&T) team. John Hayfield, former head of AECOM’s Nuclear and Environment Business Development group, will join as senior vice president. He will lead Atkins’ southeast E&T operations, while also helping to develop and carry out Atkins’ […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina is on pace to meet its fiscal 2017 goal to double-stack and safely store 200 canisters of treated radioactive waste, according to a site official. In October, liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) began stacking canisters of vitrified waste on top of each other in Glass Waste […]

A story in Tuesday’s Weapons Complex Morning Briefing should have said BWX Technologies collected net earnings of more than $180 million in 2016, up about 30 percent from 2015.

Bechtel National and the Energy Department could have saved about $2 million if they had reached an agreement to cancel orders for equipment the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) did not urgently need, the agency’s inspector general wrote in a new report. Bechtel is building the plant at the site near Richland, Wash., to treat 56 million […]

Revenue at the BWX Technologies business focused on the Energy Department’s Cold War cleanup program rose more than 15 percent last year as part of a generally strong 2016, the company reported late Monday. BWXT is scheduled to host its investor earnings call for the quarter and year ended Dec. 31 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern […]

The White House will pitch a big increase for defense spending in fiscal 2018, while other parts of the federal government will have to “do more with less,” President Donald Trump said Monday. “This defense spending increase will be offset and paid for by finding greater savings and efficiencies across the federal government,” Trump said […]

With key Energy Department officials yet to be officially instilled by the new Donald Trump administration, the 2017 Waste Management Symposium kicks off next Monday, March 6, in Phoenix, Ariz. Sue Cange — a weapons complex veteran who is now the acting assistant energy secretary for environmental management — is on the bill to speak at […]

The commissioner of the Ohio county south of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site has taken a local mayor to task for his resistance to the waste disposal facility DOE intends to build at the former uranium enrichment facility. Earlier this month, Mayor Billy Spencer of Piketon, the village of 2,000 adjacent to the Portsmouth cleanup, petitioned DOE to […]

  Fluor Idaho officials will test 11 groundwater monitoring wells on the Idaho National Laboratory site this spring following the detection of the hazardous chemical tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, inside two of the wells last year. The PCE surprised state and federal officials when it showed up in concentrations well above safe drinking water levels during […]

The Richland Operations Office will review how its prime contractors at the Hanford Site in Washington state are passing down nuclear quality assurance requirements to subcontractors and qualifying them after questions were raised about the recently completed River Corridor Closure Contract. A Department of Energy Inspector General’s Office audit report released on Feb. 17 found […]

The Energy Department will soon begin retrieving highly radioactive calcine waste stored for years at the Idaho National Laboratory. The initial phase of the retrieval project, expected to cost DOE close to $50 million and last through 2022, involves moving the powdered calcine waste out of the oldest No. 1 storage facility and into a […]

The three agencies that oversee cleanup at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., shrugged off concerns from a local citizens’ board about converting one of several spring meetings about the former plutonium production site to a webinar from an in-person affair, a document published Tuesday shows. The Tri-Party Agreement Agencies — the Energy Department, the […]

Bunch Tongate was confirmed as secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department on Monday, the state agency announced Tuesday. “Yesterday, Secretary Designate Butch Tongate was confirmed unanimously by the Senate as Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department,” the department stated in a press release. Tongate has been acting environment secretary since his predecessor, Ryan […]

Waste retrieval from the Hanford Site double-shell tank with an interior leak has been completed to the requirements of a settlement agreement between the Department of Energy and the Washington state Department of Ecology, according to DOE. The federal agency and Hanford tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions told the state that two technologies […]

A story in the Feb. 17 issue of Weapons Complex Monitor (“DOE IDs First Five Sites to Ship to WIPP,” Volume 28, No. 7) should have said there are 14,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste at the Idaho National Laboratory. Waste shipped from Idaho is ultimately projected to take up about 22,000 cubic meters once […]