Cleanup & Remediation

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/16/2014 Northwest Medical Isotopes announced late last week plans to construct a radioisotope production facility at Discovery Ridge Research Park in Columbia, Mo. to manufacture the production of molybdenum-99, an isotope used in a variety of medical procedures.  With Canada set to stop government spending in 2016 on the National […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/16/2014   A Site-Specific Memorandum of Understanding concerning the roles of the Army Corps of Engineers, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Energy at the cleanup of the Shallow Land Disposal Area site in Armstrong County, Pa is close to being finalized, according to a letter from NRC […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/16/2014 International Isotopes this week reported a net loss of $452,205 during the first quarter of 2014, an improvement compared to the $668,892 loss suffered in the first quarter of 2013. The company also reported an increase in revenue—$1.95 million in the first quarter of this year compared to $1.67 […]

RW Monitor 5/16/2014 IN THE INDUSTRY The Army Contracting Command at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois awarded a contract to General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, Inc. for the demilitarization and disposal of 78,000 depleted uranium rounds. The contract, worth approximately $12.7 million, will be performed in St. Petersburg, Fl. with an estimated completion date of […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 5/16/2014 Fresh off its defeat at Y-12 and Pantex, Babcock & Wilcox is planning to make a push for an increased role at the Savannah River Site, President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Ferland said on a conference call with investors this week. B&W is “working hard on positioning for Savannah […]

Company Says It Expects Better Results Going Forward This Year Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/9/2014 Although Perma-Fix Environmental Services had warned that its 2014 first quarter results would be down, it appears the company achieved even lower financial performance than anticipated, according to information released this week. Perma-Fix suffered a loss from continuing operations […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/9/2014 Government agencies have increased their overall efforts to address uranium mine contamination on the Navajo Reservation, but more still needs to be done, according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week. The extent of contamination and total scope of work still remains unknown, and federal funding for […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/9/2014 After experiencing a better than expected first quarter in 2014, U.S. Ecology has upped its expected EBITA for the year by $4-8 million to an estimated $74-78 million, the company said in its first quarter results released this week. According to U.S. Ecology, net income for the first quarter […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/9/2014 The Environmental Protection Agency will test the baseball fields adjacent to the West Lake Landfill near St. Louis for contamination, an EPA spokesman said this week. The EPA has faced mounting community pressure, highlighted by a recent letter from the Missouri Attorney General, to test the site after a […]

RW Monitor 5/9/2014 IN EPA The Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that it has added the Wolff-Alport Chemical Company site in the Ridgewood section of Queens, N.Y., to the federal Superfund list. The soil at the site and nearby sewers were contaminated by radioactive material from the previous activities of the former Wolff-Alport Chemical […]

Fluor-B&W Past Halfway Point of Removing Cells from Former Enrichment Process Building Mike Nartker WC Monitor 5/9/2014 Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, has reached a significant milestone in cleaning out one of the three former enrichment process buildings at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, but funding challenges currently appear set to prevent FBP from reaching a goal […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 5/9/2014   Oak Ridge cleanup chief Mark Whitney has been tapped to serve as the new No. 2 official in the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Effective May 18, Whitney will hold the position of EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, replacing Jim Owendoff, who will return to his previous […]

Contract to be Set-Aside for Small Businesses, Official Says Mike Nartker WC Monitor 5/9/2014 While the schedule for release of a Request for Proposals for the new contract to operate the Oak Ridge Transuranic Waste Processing Center is uncertain, the Department of Energy expects to be able to make an award decision by the time […]

DOE-State Working Group Again Met This Week to Discuss Issues Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/9/2014 While a Department of Energy and Nevada working group met again this week to discuss controversial proposed shipments of uranium-233, there is still no timeline for disposal of the material at the Nevada National Security Site, a DOE official said […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/9/2014 Former URS executive Carol Johnson has been picked as the new head of Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the managing contractor for the Savannah River Site, WC Monitor has learned, after President and CEO Dwayne Wilson announced this week that he is transferring to another post within Fluor. SRNS’ choice […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/9/2014 Numerous issues handled by the Savannah River Site’s two cleanup contractors so far this year have impacted productivity at the site, including the temporary suspension of operations at H-Canyon, according to a recently released Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board site representative report. “During the first quarter of 2014, the site […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/9/2014 With numerous cleanup milestones at risk due to insufficient budget requests, the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s set of ECitizens Advisory Boards are emphasizing that DOE should ask for adequate cleanup funding to meet commitments. “The Environmental Management Site Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB) believes the fiscal year […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/9/2014 Regulator Issues ‘Formal Cautions’ after Sellafield Contamination Incident The U.K.’s Office for Nuclear Regulation last week issued “formal cautions” to two Sellafield workers after a contamination incident in December at the Highly Active Liquor Evaporation and Storage facility (HALES). The event occurred when the workers removed without permission a contaminated […]

More Sludge Sent to Perma-Fix WC Monitor 5/9/2014 A second 5,000-gallon shipment of radioactive sludge has made its way from Oak Ridge to Richland, Wash.,for treatment and there could be another dozen or more as the Department of Energy works to clean up an Oak Ridge sewage-treatment facility that was contaminated by discharges of radioactive […]

DOE Manager to Retire WC Monitor 5/9/2014 Matt McCormick, Manager of the Department of Energy’s Richland Operations Office, announced this week that he is retiring from federal service in mid-June. McCormick has been at the post since July 2010, and prior to that he was assistant manager for the Central Plateau at the Richland Operations […]

WC Monitor 5/9/2014 IN CONGRESS The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is set to hold a hearing next week to consider the nomination of Monica Regalbuto to serve as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management. The hearing is scheduled to be held May 13 beginning at 10 a.m. Regalbuto currently holds the position […]

Owner of Occupational Med Contractor Arrested WC Monitor 5/2/2014 A co-owner of HPM Corp., which holds the Department of Energy contract to provide occupational medicine services at Hanford, has been arrested on suspicion of assault in the fourth degree, a gross misdemeanor. Grover Cleveland “Cleve” Mooers is accused in documents filed in Franklin County District […]

SRNL TO Conduct Review of Tank Vapors WC Monitor 5/2/2014 The Savannah River National Laboratory will lead an independent review of chemical vapors and worker protection at the Hanford tank farms, it announced late last week. Early this week, two more workers reported smelling tank vapors, this time at the C Tank Farm where work […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/2/2014 The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has asked contractors and site field offices across the complex to perform a review of deferred maintenance in response to the recent incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant that have shut down operations there. “One of the early lessons learned from […]

DOE FY’15 Budget Request Would Cut RL Funding by Approx. $93 Million Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/2/2014 As many as seven cleanup milestones at Hanford are at risk of being missed in Fiscal Year 2015 due to funding issues, a DOE official said this week. DOE’s Richland Operations Office faced one of the largest cuts […]

D&D Work May be Broken Out for Small Businesses Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/2/2014 As the Department of Energy moves forward with planning for a procurement for cleanup work at the Idaho site post-Fiscal Year 2015, DOE is considering combining the site’s two current cleanup contracts and separating out D&D work for small businesses, a […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 5/2/2014 Transportation, Operations and Professional Services (TOPS), which was raided by federal law enforcement agents earlier this year, has sold the waste transportation subcontract it had with URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC (UCOR). UCOR spokesman Allen Schubert confirmed this week that Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based TFE Inc. had acquired the subcontract. “This acquisition […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/2/2014 Moving ahead with potentially processing German experimental spent fuel at the Savannah River Site’s H-Canyon, the Department of Energy recently signed a statement of intent with the German government to examine the idea. The highly enriched uranium comes in the form of graphite spheres from the pebble bed AVR gas-cooled […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/2/2014 As the Department of Energy considers its options for disposing of surplus plutonium, a new study released this week suggests that downblending the material and disposing of it at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant may be the least expensive alternative. While DOE’s current plans calls for the material to be […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/2/2014 EnergySolutions Sues NDA for Damages in Magnox Award Incumbent contractor EnergySolutions this week filed a claim for damages against the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in a challenge to the recent award of the Magnox/RSRL contract to the Cavendish Fluor Partnership. Bechtel, EnergySolutions’ teaming partner in the Reactor Site Solutions bid for […]