Cleanup & Remediation

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 12/11/2015 The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) this week said it is investigating an incident in which a worker at the Separations Process Research Unit decommissioning and demolition project suffered symptoms of heat stress. The Aug. 15 event raises questions about possible “deficiencies” by contractor URS Energy & […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 12/11/2015 The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) has sent a letter of enforcement to Hanford Site services and infrastructure contractor Mission Support Alliance. The letter questions the contractor’s response to a May 2015 accident involving a crane rigger, but imposes no requirements on MSA. Steven Simonson, director of […]

WC Monitor 12/11/2015 IN EM Workers have installed more than 5,400 steel bolts in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico in the year since ground control operations resumed at the subterranean transuranic waste storage site, the Department of Energy said last week. The bolts are one element of the advancing program to increase […]

Karl Herchenroeder RW Monitor 12/11/2015 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) last week released its feasibility study and proposed plan for cleanup of the Niagara Falls Storage Site, a 191-acre property that contains radioactive material linked to Manhattan Project operations. Though he said it could be some time before the cleanup project receives full […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) is looking to expedite the Savannah River Site’s liquid waste cleanup and tank grouting missions 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 the […]

Officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have known for at least 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 completing the cleanup of […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) this week said it is investigating an incident in which a worker at the Separations Process Research Unit decommissioning and demolition project suffered symptoms of heat stress.   The Aug. 15 event raises questions about possible “deficiencies” by D&D contractor URS Energy & Construction in adhering to […]

The Department of Energy on Monday said it had awarded a contract worth up to $9.4 million for technical, engineering, and programmatic support for the Office of Environmental Management headquarters in Washington, D.C., and other EM locations.   Link Technologies of Germantown, Md., offered the sole response to the solicitation for the contract that features […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Buffalo District has released its feasibility study and proposed plan for the Interim Waste Containment Structure Operable Unit of the Niagara Falls Storage Site, and is inviting the public to a meeting in Youngstown, N.Y., on Jan. 13. The public is free to comment on the proposed plan through […]

WC Monitor 12/4/2015   Hanford Richland Office Announces Staff Promotion Jeff Frey has been named assistant manager for safety and environment at the Hanford Richland Operations Office (RL), a senior executive service position. He had been serving in that position in an acting capacity. Frey previously was assistant manager for safety and environment and served […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 12/4/2015 The Department of Energy is preparing a fourth draft of the remedial investigation/feasibility study (RI/FS) for a new CERCLA landfill in Oak Ridge, which underscores the number of issues raised by environmental regulators and the continuing differences about the project, which DOE deems critical to finishing the environmental cleanup campaign […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 12/4/2015 The Department of Energy in fiscal 2015 “disallowed” costs of approximately $3.1 million to Washington Savannah River Co. (WSRC), the former Savannah River Site (SRS) contractor and a Westinghouse subsidiary, after the DOE inspector general found WSRC employees had inappropriately received severance payments under a SRS workforce restructuring, the IG […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 12/4/2015 There have been "significant issues" with the safety basis for the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) in Idaho, leading to “underestimating the likelihood and consequences” of some accident scenarios, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. This may have brought about inadequacies in the selection and classification of […]

Staff Reports NS&D Monitor 12/4/2015 Consolidated Nuclear Security, the government’s managing contractor at the Y-12 nuclear weapons site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is advancing plans to address the National Nuclear Security Administration’s mandate to reduce the enriched uranium inventory in the plant’s aged 9212 complex. A critical part of that effort apparently will involve stepping […]

WC Monitor 12/4/2015   SRNS Saves Millions on Groundwater Cleanup Through New Methods Moving away from mechanized pump-and-treat facilities to more “simple,” multiphased passive cleanup methods has reduced costs for remediation of Savannah River Site’s groundwater from $12 million per year to approximately $1 million annually, the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management said last […]

The Department of Energy in fiscal 2015 “disallowed” costs of approximately $3.1 million to Washington Savannah River Co. (WSRC), the former Savannah River Site (SRS) contractor and a Westinghouse subsidiary, after the DOE inspector general had found that WSRC employees had inappropriately received severance payments under a SRS workforce restructuring, the IG said Tuesday in […]

The Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor at its Idaho site, CH2M-WG, Idaho, LLC, continues to make progress in the demolition of the site’s Experimental Breeder Reactor-II. Decontamination and decommissioning crews recently sliced a 48-foot-long, 103,000-pound steam drum tank into three portions, which were dropped in the basement of the boiler building for permanent disposal, according […]

Moving away from mechanized pump-and-treat facilities to more “simple,” multiphased passive cleanup methods has reduced costs for remediation of Savannah River Site’s groundwater from $12 million per year to approximately $1 million annually, the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management said on Wednesday. When SRS produced national defense nuclear materials between the 1950s and 1980s, […]

There have been "significant issues" with the safety basis for the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) in Idaho, leading to “underestimating the likelihood and consequences” of some accident scenarios, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. This may have brought about inadequacies in the selection and classification of employee and public safety controls, […]

The U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council has scheduled its next EM Roundtable for 8 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 3, in G11 Dirksen Senate Office Bulding in Washington, D.C. The roundtable, "Perspectives from the Congress and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board," will feature discussion from DNFSB Chairwoman Joyce Connery and board member Bruce Hamilton, along with Spencer Pederson, […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not be published on Thursday in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. The next edition will be published Monday.

No more Savannah River Site facilities operated by contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) are under the operational safety pause the company initiated on Sept. 11. In addition, SRNS has phased several Savannah River Site (SRS) facilities out of a deliberate operations mode, according to company spokeswoman Barbara Smoak.   The last facilities to exit […]

The Energy Department’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center on Tuesday released a sources sought and request for information for the potential upcoming procurement for Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management Technical Support Services. EM hopes to get input from small businesses, and intends to assess set-aside possibilities, according to an EMCBC press release. Contract type, […]

Savannah River Site facilities and waste disposal are being threatened by heightened levels of mercury found in the site’s H-Area Tank Farm, according to liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR). The entire SRS liquid waste system contains about 60 metric tons of mercury that originated from decades of canyon processing when the material was […]

Members of Missouri’s congressional delegation on Thursday introduced legislation that would transfer remediation authority over the mixed-use West Lake Landfill from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program.   The EPA’s 25-year effort to clean the landfill, which contains radioactive waste, is “stagnant” and “unacceptable,” according […]

The Department of Energy is preparing a fourth draft version of the remedial investigation/feasibility study (RI/FS) for a new CERCLA landfill in Oak Ridge, which underscores the number of issues raised by environmental regulators and the continuing differences about the project, which DOE deems critical to finishing the environmental cleanup campaign from former defense nuclear […]

Karl Herchenroeder RW Monitor 11/20/2015 Members of Missouri’s congressional delegation on Thursday introduced legislation that would transfer remediation authority over the mixed-use West Lake Landfill from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. The EPA’s 25-year effort to clean the landfill, which contains radioactive waste, is […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 11/20/2015 The Department of Energy has not yet come up with the official CERCLA “proposed plan” for its second-generation waste landfill in Oak Ridge, Tenn., which will include a period for public comments on the proposal. But the City of Oak Ridge has already prepared comments – and they are not […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 11/20/2015 Washington Closure Hanford has completed digging up most of the chromium contamination near the Columbia River at the Hanford Site, excavating down to more than 85 feet in some places and removing more than 2 million tons of tainted soil. Any remaining work, which could be required near the K […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 11/20/2015 Winds that gusted up to 70 mph this week at the Hanford Site in Washington state spread very small amounts of radioactive contamination to within 40 feet of a public highway. Washington Closure Hanford has had problems with contamination spreading from the 618-10 Burial Ground trenches since June 2014, but […]