Cleanup & Remediation

Staff Reports WC Monitor 8/28/2015 Hanford Site services contractor Mission Support Alliance has been sued by a former senior project manager for alleged retaliation, discrimination, and wrongful termination. The lawsuit, filed by Julie Atwood in Benton County Superior Court late last week, also names Steve Young, the MSA vice president of portfolio management and mayor of Kennewick, and […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 8/28/2015 The Savannah River Site (SRS) this month ended an extended “safety pause” in operations of a chemical processing system that produces feedstock for the planned Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. The suspension of operations began early this year following a Jan. 7 power outage at the facility. While that incident […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 8/28/2015 The Department of Energy is pressing a contractor to address the recent spread of strontium particles from a burial site for highly radioactive waste at the Hanford Site. A Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board site report released this month said the DOE Richland Operations Office “issued a letter to the […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 8/28/2015 The Department of Energy needs enforceable deadlines and more requirements to hold it accountable for Hanford Site tank waste cleanup covered in the 2010 court-enforced consent decree, a federal judge has ruled. Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington has issued her second order since the state of Washington […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 8/28/2015 URS Energy and Construction has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant whistleblower Walter Tamosaitis for $4.1 million. “This sends a message to all those out there – especially the young engineers – who have integrity, are honest and have courage to hang in there that justice […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 8/28/2015 All indications are that safety culture at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, while not perfect, is improving, said Sean Sullivan, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board member who led a DNFSB public hearing on the matter this week.  But board Vice Chair Jessie Roberson was more critical. Numerous actions have […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 8/28/2015 The Department of Energy failed to meet “essential federal oversight requirements” when it issued an updated version of software used to assist the packaging and transport of radioactive materials, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Vice Chair Jessie Roberson asserted this month. In an Aug. 10 letter to Deputy Energy Secretary […]

The contractor tasked to dispose of legacy nuclear liquid waste at the Savannah River Site this month issued a request for proposals for a subcontractor to remove cesium from that waste. “The scope of this activity is for a supplier to provide a commercially-available ion exchange process (known as Tank Closure Cesium Removal (TCCR)) to […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday said it had extracted three glove boxes from the so-called “McCluskey Room” at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant. The move is a key step toward razing the plant as part of the ongoing cleanup of the former U.S. nuclear weapons support site, according to a DOE press release. […]

Mission Support Alliance, the Hanford Site support services contractor, was sued Friday in Benton County Superior Court for alleged discrimination against a former senior project manager. Also named in the lawsuit filed by Julie Atwood were Steve Young, the MSA vice president of portfolio management and mayor of Kennewick, and David Ruscitto, the former MSA […]

Savannah River Site expects to save $606,000 per year through revising preventive maintenance work schedules within its Savannah River Tritium Enterprise (SRTE), a project the lab started in January 2015, according to SRS officials. The point of the revised schedules is to align with “actual requirements and needs,” according to an SRS press release. The […]

The Department of Energy needs enforceable deadlines and more requirements to hold it accountable for Hanford tank waste cleanup covered in the 2010 court-enforced consent decree, a federal judge has ruled. Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington has issued her second order since the state of Washington and DOE […]

Navarro Research and Engineering on Monday filed a protest to Portage’s contract win for remediation work at the Army Corps of Engineers’ Luckey site. The contract for environmental remediation services and ancillary construction to support the cleanup at the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) site in Ohio is worth up to $100 million […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) on Monday was responding to a possible security threat after electronic and canine scans of a vendor delivery truck indicated a possibility of explosive residue on the truck. Law enforcement agencies from South Carolina and Georgia found no explosive residue or device on the truck after an […]

The Savannah River Site’s contract manager has agreed to pay nearly $235,000 to 72 workers following claims that female and black employees received unfair pay levels, the Department of Labor announced last week. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions also intends to reassess its employee policies, according to a press release. The Labor Department’s Office of Federal […]

Government contractor AECOM has acknowledged several federal investigations of affiliate companies doing work in the cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state. According to the company’s 10-Q report filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission, “the federal government is conducting an investigation into our affiliate, URS Energy & Construction, a subcontractor on […]

Hanford subcontractor URS Energy & Construction agreed to settle a whistleblower lawsuit brought by former employee Walter Tamosaitis for $4.1 million Wednesday. Tamosaitis, the former research and technology manager for the Waste Treatment Plant, was removed from the project in July 2010 shortly after he said he raised concerns about the future safe and efficient […]

The Department of Energy said Monday it had promoted a veteran DOE manager into the position of director of the Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC). Ralph Holland has two decades’ experience with DOE, lately as EMCBC deputy director. He also served as a supervisor and manager with the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency. “Ralph […]

WC Monitor 8/7/2015 Hanford Workers Test Clean After Possible Radiological Contamination Three workers appear to be in the clear following potential exposure to airborne radiological contaminants in June at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP0, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a report released this week. “Bioassay evaluations directed due to a […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 8/7/2015 The contractor building the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state has prepared a comprehensive but not complete analysis of possible hazards to one of the plant’s facilities, the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments said in a review made public on Tuesday. […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 8/7/2015 Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) intends to resubmit to the Department of Energy (DOE) Field Office the Evaluation of the Safety of the Situation/Justification for Continued Operations (ESS/JCO) concerning safety basis limits at the Area G nuclear waste disposal site, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) spokesman Al Stotts told NS&D […]

As is our annual practice, WC Monitor is taking a summer publication break and will not publish for the next two weeks. The next regular issue will be on your desk Aug. 22. Subscribers to the Weapons Complex Morning Briefing service will receive editions twice-a-week on a Tuesday/Thursday basis during the break. In addition, we will issue a Special […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 8/7/2015 The Department of Energy’s environmental cleanup chief responded to the state of Tennessee’s concerns about reduced funding for Oak Ridge Reservation environmental projects and said they shared common interests, but he didn’t make any promises about future budgets or address the state’s specific concerns about funding trends. Mark Whitney, DOE’s […]

Chris Schneidmiller and Lance Moore WC Monitor 8/7/2015 The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Monica Regalbuto as the Department of Energy’s assistant secretary for environmental management. The DOE veteran will lead the office tasked with managing the cleanup of U.S. nuclear arms operations and government-supported atomic energy activities. She most recently served as associate principal deputy […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 8/7/2015 The Canadian Nuclear Laboratories late last week awarded an $86.8 million contract to a joint venture of Amec Foster Wheeler and CB&I to construct the Port Granby long-term waste management facility, the companies announced. The contract calls for the excavation of legacy low-level radioactive waste from the Port Hope […]

The Senate confirmed yesterday Monica Regalbuto as the Department of Energy’s Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management. “Having served in both the Office of Environmental Management and the Office of Nuclear Energy, Monica is more than ready for her new role at the Department,” said Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz in a statement. “Her hands-on experience […]

An updated emergency management plan would be one step toward improving readiness for a crisis at a former Department of Energy uranium enrichment site in Tennessee, accordng to a DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments report released this week.The department generally gave good marks to emergency management operations at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), which is now […]

The contractor building the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state has prepared a comprehensive but not complete analysis of possible hazards to one of the plant’s facilities, the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments said in a review made public on Tuesday. The DOE report focuses on Bechtel […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) intends to resubmit to the Department of Energy (DOE) Field Office the Evaluation of the Safety of the Situation/Justification for Continued Operations (ESS/JCO) concerning safety basis limits at the Area G nuclear waste disposal site, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) spokesman Al Stotts told NS&D Monitor. The original submission was […]