Cleanup & Remediation

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 1/8/2016 The company carrying out the decontamination and decommissioning of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) in Ohio is largely meeting Department of Energy rules for management of radioactive waste, according to the DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA). The office also found that the department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office provides “generally […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/8/2016 The Hanford Site fiscal 2016 appropriation signed into law is $78.7 million more than requested by the Obama administration and is higher than the fiscal 2015 budget. It totals $2.3 billion. “The federal government has a legal and moral obligation to clean up Hanford, which is why I fight year […]

Karl Herchenroeder RW Monitor 1/8/2016 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will stay the course with its $350.2 million cleanup effort at a nuclear waste site in the Pittsburgh area, which was originally estimated at $44.5 million in 2007. In a record of decision amendment issued in December for the Parks Township Shallow Land Disposal […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/8/2016 The Department of Energy lauded URS-CH2M Oak Ridge’s (UCOR) work as cleanup manager for the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee for the final half of fiscal 2015 and awarded the contractor fees totaling about $4.5 million. The fees represent almost 96 percent of what was available in the maximum fee pool […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/8/2016 Contractors at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Savannah River sites have joined together to tackle mercury cleanup problems. Anne Smith, a spokeswoman for URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), DOE’s cleanup contractor for the Tennessee site, said the company has formed a mercury issues coordination team with Savannah River Remediation, […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/8/2016 The Department of Energy is moving to begin containing and cleaning up a growing plume of hexavalent chromium in the regional aquifer under the Los Alamos National Laboratory. After nine years of slow but incremental attention to a complex hydrological puzzle, DOE Environmental Management officials drew up a draft environmental […]

A new panel of experts is being formed to establish a strategy for the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNS) to create technologies for remediation of waste left by U.S. nuclear operations.   Clemson University inked an agreement with the Department of Energy lab this week to establish, manage, and offer administrative assistance to the external […]

The Department of Energy last week issued a request for information for companies interested in preparing a supplemental environmental impact statement for the West Valley Demonstration Project in upstate New York.   DOE is working with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to remediate a one-time commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing site about […]

Washington state has failed to receive an extension for 2016 under the REAL ID Act passed by Congress in 2005, which will change requirements for accessing much of the Hanford Site. A standard Washington state driver’s license or identification card will no longer be sufficient proof of identification to be issued a Hanford badge starting […]

The Department of Energy is moving to begin containing and cleaning up a growing plume of hexavalent chromium in the regional aquifer under the Los Alamos National Laboratory. After nine years of slow but incremental attention to a complex hydrological puzzle, DOE Environmental Management officials drew up a draft environmental analysis for review and public […]

The Weapons Complex Morning Briefing is taking its annual holiday break. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Monday, Jan. 4.

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) received over $37 million for its annual award fee despite its self-induced safety pause and a long list of deficiencies documented by the Department of Energy. The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor conducts work for the DOE Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration. SRNS […]

The Savannah River Site (SRS) recently hosted a gathering of robotics specialists from the United States and abroad for talks on the use of the technology in the Department of Energy’s nuclear site cleanup activities. The event was co-organized by the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), the National Science Foundation, and Purdue University. It […]

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The Savannah River Site (SRS) recently hosted a gathering of robotics specialists from the United States and abroad for talks on the use of the technology in the Department of Energy’s nuclear site cleanup activities.   The event was co-organized by the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), the National Science Foundation, and Purdue University. […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s renewed air quality permit last week withstood a challenge from several nongovernmental entities. The National Nuclear Security Administration facility and its state regulator, the New Mexico Environment Department, persuaded the state Environmental Improvement Board to deny the appeal to the NMED approval from February 2015.   The petitioners sought additional […]

Eleven potentially contaminated vortex coolers used in protective suits worn by Hanford Site workers were taken off-site, leading to surveys for radioactive contamination in three states last week. Two of the coolers were found to have small amounts of fixed contamination, but no spread of contamination was found in residential and commercial space, the Department […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 12/18/2015 The congressionally approved omnibus budget for fiscal 2016 would provide nearly $6 billion for remediation of legacy Department of Energy defense nuclear facilities across the nation. House lawmakers voted Friday morning 316-113 to approve the $1.15 trillion spending package, and the Senate quickly followed suit with a 65-33 decision. The […]

The Weapons Complex Monitor is beginning its annual holiday break and will return to your inboxes on Friday, Jan. 8. The Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will be published Monday through Wednesday next week, and we will publish special bulletins should any major news break in the interim.

Staff Reports WC Monitor 12/18/2015 The state of Washington and the Department of Energy each have told a federal judge that the others’ proposal for new consent decree milestones at the Hanford Site would lead to delays in the massive cleanup project. Responses to the sides’ revised proposals were due this week, after U.S. District […]

WC Monitor 12/18/2015 IN DOE The Department of Energy has determined there is no need for a new supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) before a liquid form of highly enriched uranium is transported from Canada to the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. Stakeholders, including nuclear watchdogs and congressmen, have called for an EIS before […]

The agreed-upon fiscal 2016 federal omnibus budget would provide nearly $6 billion for remediation of legacy Department of Energy defense nuclear facilities.   House lawmakers are expected to vote Friday on the spending package, followed by a Senate decision. The White House has indicated President Barack Obama would sign the bill, which would keep the […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has scheduled 22 public tours for 2016.   “Traveling within large and comfortable commercial buses, driving tours provide members of the public with an opportunity to see many of the historic and operational facilities at SRS that were responsible for the production of plutonium and tritium during the […]

The Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will be published from Monday to Wednesday next week. It will then take a break for the holidays before returning to your inbox on Monday, Jan. 4.

Washington state and the Department of Energy have filed what should be their final documents in federal court in their dispute over the cleanup of the Hanford Site, the state Attorney General’s Office said on Tuesday.   The state and DOE are in a legal battle over the court-enforced 2010 consent decree that set milestones […]

A longtime worker at the Hanford Site in Washington state on Sunday officially became chief engineer for the Office of River Protection, the Department of Energy said.   Elaine Diaz “will serve as principal technical expert for the development and implementation of engineering standard requirements and provides recommendations to senior management on nuclear safety and […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 12/11/2015 Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) is looking to expedite the Savannah River Site’s environmental cleanup mission through the development of a public-private partnership. The partnership would team SRNS and the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) with a public partner. Together, the collaborative would bring a 70,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing center to […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 12/11/2015 Mark Whitney, the No. 2 officer in the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, was the keynote speaker Wednesday at the Energy, Technology, and Environmental Business Association’s annual Business Opportunities Conference in Knoxville. He gave attendees – many of them contractors in the department’s cleanup programs – an overview […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 12/11/2015 Officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have known more than two years that the facility would not meet a key deadline in a fence-to-fence cleanup of radioactive and hazardous waste that their predecessors agreed to more than a decade ago under a binding court-ordered consent decree. A settlement for […]