Decommissioning

Moab Uranium Mill Tailings project contractor Portage earned about 76 percent of its available award fee in Fiscal Year 2014, according to a fee determination scorecard recently posted by the Department of Energy. Portage earned $1,065,483 out of $1,401,951 in total available award fee. That’s a drop from FY 2013, when the contractor earned 96 […]

NDA Business Plan Calls for £3.31B in Spending Over Next Year Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 3/27/2015 The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s business plan for 2015-2018, released this week, calls for an overall spending level of £3.31 billion ($4.93 billion). The bulk of that, £1.95 billion ($2.9 billion), will go to the Sellafield site, where the NDA […]

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s business plan for 2015 to 2016, released yesterday, calls for an overall spending level of £3.31 billion ($4.93 billion). The bulk of that, £1.95 billion ($2.9 billion), will go to the Sellafield site, where the NDA recently announced a decision to take over management from parent body organization Nuclear Management Partners. […]

Trial sludge retrievals have begun at Sellafield’s legacy fuel ponds, with retrievals expected to continue “in earnest” in April, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced yesterday. The heavy radioactive sludge has been sitting for decades in the open-air unlined ponds, and in a major step forward two treatment facilities have been commissioned at the site. In […]

Todd Jacobson WC Monitor 3/20/2015 Fourteen vacant National Nuclear Security Administration facilities have languished since 2009 without being decontaminated or decommissioned due to a lack of funding, and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management may not be properly prioritizing the facilities it takes from the NNSA, the Government Accountability Office said in a […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 3/20/2015 Fourteen vacant National Nuclear Security Administration facilities have languished since 2009 without being decontaminated or decommissioned due to a lack of funding, and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management may not be properly prioritizing the facilities it takes from the NNSA, the Government Accountability Office said in a […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 3/13/2015 The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is calling on improvements for controlling safety risks at Hanford after completing a review of decommissioning safety systems at the site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, according to a letter sent to the Department of Energy late last week. An attached DNFSB staff report highlighted numerous […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/13/2015 As this week marked four years after the disaster at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear site, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) reported this week that 750 tons of rainwater containing Strontium-90 may have seeped into the ground at the cleanup site. Following heavy rains at the site, water accumulated in […]

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) reported yesterday that 750 tons of rainwater containing Strontium-90 may have seeped into the ground at the Fukushima-Daiichi cleanup site. Following heavy rains at the site, water accumulated in the outer dyke of the H4 tank area, which has had problems with leaking tanks in the past. TEPCO, though, made assurances […]

The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has appointed four new non-executive directors to its Board this week, the agency announced. The new directors include Evelyn Dickey and Volker Beckers, starting immediately, as well as Janet Ashdown and Rob Holden starting in June. “The collective experience of leading major businesses, managing complex commercial projects, transformational change and […]

FBP Earned Approx. 82 Percent of Available Fee Mike Nartker WC Monitor 3/6/2015 After years of steadily decreasing fee performance at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, D&D contractor Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, received a boost in fee for its work in Fiscal Year 2014, according to information the Department of Energy released this week. FBP earned […]

After years of steadily decreasing fee performance, Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, the D&D contractor at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, received a boost in fee for its work in Fiscal Year 2014, according to information DOE released yesterday. FBP earned 81.86 percent of the available award fee in FY14, or approximately $12.7 million out of an […]

Parent body organization Cavendish Fluor announced plans to merge U.K. site license companies Magnox Ltd and Research Sites Restoration Ltd this spring to manage the sites under one leadership team, and will address additional scope. The Cavendish Fluor team took over management of the U.K.’s 10 Magnox reactor sites and two research reactor sites after […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 2/27/2015 As the Department of Energy’s cleanup program disposes of thousands of excess facilities and properties, data and policy issues are hampering effective DOE management of those facilities, according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week. Between 2003 and 2013, DOE disposed of almost 2,000 facilities, the vast majority […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 2/20/2015 A senior Fluor executive late this week questioned the Department of Energy’s recent decision to issue a fine of almost a quarter-of-a-million dollars against Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, for a data falsification incident at the Portsmouth D&D project. Saying that some DOE enforcement decisions “don’t make a lot of sense to […]

Contract Initially Valued at Approx. $67 Million Mike Nartker WC Monitor 2/20/2015 The total cost to complete D&D activities at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) site could approach $400 million, project contractor AECOM reported last week. To date, the contractor has incurred a total project cost of approximately $300 million, and “due to significant […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 2/20/2015 West Valley Demonstration Project cleanup contractor CH2M Hill B&W West Valley earned about 60 percent, or $175,000, of its available award fee for the second half of Fiscal Year 2014, according to a fee determination scorecard the Department of Energy released this week. CHBWV’s score was slightly better than what […]

About 1,300 workers at the U.K.’s Sellafield Site walked off the site Monday as part of a labor dispute, site license company Sellafield Limited confirmed yesterday. The “unofficial action is as a result of a dispute between a main contractor and a sub-contractor,” according to a Sellafield Limited statement. The contractors involved are part of […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/13/2015 The Sturgis Barge is scheduled for arrival in Galveston, Texas, for decommissioning in May, more than six months after it had been scheduled to make the trip, the Army Corps of Engineers said this week. The original timeline called for the barge to be towed down from Virginia last […]

New Delay Could Challenge DOE’s Ability to Meet 2017 Commitment Mike Nartker WC Monitor 2/6/2015 In a move that appears set to place a key regulatory commitment at the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) site in California in increased jeopardy of being missed, the Department of Energy is again pushing out the schedule for completing […]

DOE Reviewing Material Differences Submitted by Contractor Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 2/6/2015 About three-and-a-half years into the West Valley cleanup contract, the Department of Energy is still incorporating material differences into the contract to set a final schedule for the demolition of the site’s main plant, DOE this week. Contractor CH2M Hill-B&W West Valley submitted […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/6/2015 More investigation is needed to determine if additional radiological contamination exists outside the fence line of the Shallow Land Disposal Area in Armstrong County, Pa., a recent Environmental Protection Agency report said. Following a request from an activist, the EPA went through a trough of documents containing information about […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/6/2015 Despite earlier outcry from the Galveston, Texas, City Council over the Army Corps of Engineers’ planned decommissioning of the Sturgis Barge last year, the city council approved the permit needed to move forward with the project in the city’s port late last month. USACE completed an Environmental Assessment as […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 2/6/2015 Work resumed this week at the Fukushima-Daiichi Power Station cleanup following the death of two workers last month. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) suspended work at the site until a full safety review into the two separate worker deaths could be completed. As a result of the review, […]

Cleanup work resumed yesterday at the Fukushima-Daiichi Power Station following the death of two workers last month. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) suspended work at the site until a full safety review into the two separate worker deaths could be completed. As a result of the review, TEPCO introduced new measures to put safety […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 1/30/2015 The Department of Energy should better address the risk posed by the hundreds of excess contaminated facilities that have not yet been transferred to the Office of Environmental Management for cleanup, the DOE Office of Inspector General said in a report released this week. It notes DOE has not yet […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/30/2015 After months of calls for the public release of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the Shallow Land Disposal Area (SLDA) site in Armstrong County, Pa., the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program publicly released the document last week. The agreement clarifies the roles of […]

The Department of Energy should better address the risk posed by the hundreds of excess contaminated facilities that have not yet been transferred to the Office of Environmental Management for cleanup, the DOE Office of Inspector General said in a report released yesterday. For example, DOE has not yet developed a “definitive transfer schedule” for […]

The Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program publicly released last week the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the Shallow Land Disposal Area (SLDA) site in Armstrong County, Pa. The document clarifies the roles of the Corps, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Nuclear […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/23/2015 Two worker deaths have occurred over two days in separate incidents at the Fukushima Daii-chi cleanup site, the Tokyo Electric Power Company announced this week. The deaths brings the total work fatalities at the site to three in the past year after a worker died from falling rubble while […]