Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Nuclear Security Administration stopped keeping track of active cases of the disease among personnel who don’t report to work regularly at the agency’s labs, plants or sites. The change left the agency with 59 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 among employees working on site, a spokesperson at […]

Members of the Hanford Advisory Board said Wednesday they should have a voice in the Department of Energy’s plans to diversify the panel that provides policy recommendations on cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state. During an online meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board (HAB), many members said they want to provide input on […]

Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. Here are some other stories RadWaste Monitor was tracking across the civilian nuclear power space this week. U.S. accuses Russia of war crimes in shelling Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant Even before the U.S. took a firm stance on the Russian military’s violence against civilians in Ukraine this week, its embassy in Kyiv accused […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission violated federal law when it licensed a proposed commercial facility in Texas to store nearly half of the country’s spent nuclear fuel, a coalition of anti-nuclear groups argued last week as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the agency. NRC, which in September gave its blessing to Waste Control Specialists-Orano USA […]

New Mexico’s attorney general moved his fight against commercial interim storage to an appeals court after a District Court threw out his first challenge to the site in early March, according to recent court documents. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has until May 9 to respond to state Attorney General Hector Balderas’s most recent arguments against […]

The federal government must prioritize changing U.S. nuclear waste law as it eyes a spent fuel storage solution, a community stakeholders group said during a panel discussion this week. Amending the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) is “one of the things that needs to happen” before the federal government can move forward on interim storage, […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday formally resumed its quest for a domestic site to store elemental mercury with publication of a solicitation for bids. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center announced in a press release a final request for proposals (RFP) for a long-term elemental mercury storage contractor. The move comes weeks […]

The Nevada National Security Site disposed of roughly 550,000 cubic feet of radioactive waste from other federal sites around the country during 2021, according to the Department of Energy. The total includes classified and low-level or mixed low-level radioactive waste, the DOE Office of Environmental Management said in its Strategic Vision for the former Nevada […]

Washington state Department of Ecology Director Laura Watson and her top nuclear waste manager, David Bowen, visited Washington, D.C., last week to urge that more cleanup funds for the Hanford Site be included in the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2023 budget. The Ecology officials were in the nation’s capital March 14-16 while President Joe Biden […]

Scott Sax, top contractor boss for Central Plateau cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state is retiring in May and will be succeeded by the head of another Amentum-led Hanford joint venture, the company said Monday. Sax, president and project manager for Central Plateau Cleanup Co., is retiring effective May 16 […]

UCOR, the Amentum-Jacobs partnership in charge of remediation at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, earned 98% of total potential fee or $24.7 million, during a seven-month period ended Oct. 31, according to a scorecard released this week. The contractor, being succeeded by a joint venture made up of Amentum, Jacobs and […]

With declining demand for employee vaccination against COVID-19, the occupational medical provider serving the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington Site will soon be offering only one option, Moderna, for initial inoculations or booster shots. The provider of occupational medical services, HMP Corp. (HMPC), is dropping the Pfizer shot after March 24 and discontinuing […]

In a confirmation hearing Tuesday morning, the Joe Biden administration’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons programs from headquarters in Washington pledged his support for the agency’s program of record and agreed to review the agency’s plan to produce new plutonium pits if confirmed. The nominee, Marvin Adams, a professor of nuclear […]

A regulatory domino fell Thursday at the plant where Westinghouse fabricates tritium producing burnable absorber rods for the National Nuclear Security Administration, clearing the way for cleanup of contaminated disposal lagoons on the South Carolina property. On Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an exemption to commission regulations clearing U.S. Ecology to accept waste from […]

Many full-timers working directly for the Los Alamos National Laboratory Laboratory received a modest raise earlier this month as part of broad retention efforts by the National Nuclear Security Administration, according to a letter from the lab’s director. “We are pleased that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has granted this increase,” Thomas Mason, director […]

As the nuclear-weapons production complex began a shift into overdrive, non-essential personnel at the Pantex site were asked to delay their arrival early this week, starting with the graveyard shift on Monday after a late-season ice storm moved in over the Texas panhandle. Only a day after the spring equinox, the system dropped a wintery […]

A regulatory domino fell Thursday at the plant where Westinghouse fabricates tritium producing burnable absorber rods for the National Nuclear Security Administration, clearing the way for cleanup of contaminated disposal lagoons on the South Carolina property. On Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an exemption to commission regulations clearing U.S. Ecology to accept waste from […]

The federal government must prioritize changing U.S. nuclear waste law as it eyes a spent fuel storage solution, a community stakeholders group said during a panel discussion Wednesday. Amending the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) is “one of the things that needs to happen” before the federal government can move forward on interim storage, Kara […]

Many full-timers working directly for the Los Alamos National Laboratory Laboratory received a modest raise earlier this month as part of broad retention efforts by the National Nuclear Security Administration, according to a letter from the lab’s director. “We are pleased that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has granted this increase,” Thomas Mason, director […]

In a confirmation hearing Tuesday morning, the Joe Biden administration’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons programs from headquarters in Washington pledged his support for the agency’s program of record and agreed to review the agency’s plan to produce new plutonium pits if confirmed. The nominee, Marvin Adams, a professor of nuclear […]

As the nuclear-weapons production complex begins a shift into overdrive, non-essential personnel at the Pantex site were asked to delay their arrival starting with Monday’s graveyard shift after a late-season ice storm moved in over the Texas panhandle. Only a day after the spring equinox, the system dropped a wintery mix over Amarillo and the […]

With the COVID-19 pandemic easing, most of the Washington, D.C. headquarters staff for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is back at the office  although employees have the option to continue to telecommute with their manager’s approval, a spokesperson for the agency said in an email. “The Resident Inspectors were onsite providing oversight during the […]

A new 20,000-square-foot high-explosives fabrication facility at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant should be up and running by January 2024.  Pantex broke ground on the new Advanced Fabrication Facility in Amarillo, Texas, the week of March 11 and was scheduled to move into the building in late 2023, said Jason Bohne, spokesman for […]

The Washington Department of Ecology says Congress’ Hanford’s fiscal 2022 appropriation is a few hundred million dollars short of meeting the site’s legal obligations for the year. At a Tuesday public Zoom briefing, the Washington State Department of Ecology put Hanford’s  congressional appropriation for fiscal 2022 at $2.95 billion, under the omnibus budget bill signed […]

The prime contractor for the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina is inviting inquiries from “minority serving institutions” interested in helping carry out research for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Battelle Savannah River Alliance said in a March 11 notice on the federal procurement website (sam.gov) expressions of interest for such […]

Talks on the future of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina are continuing between the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration, Nicole Nelson-Jean, a veteran of both DOE branches, told the Waste Management Symposia late last week in Phoenix. Nelson-Jean, currently associate principal deputy assistant secretary for […]

Security guards and other plaintiffs suing President Joe Biden and the Department of Energy over COVID19 workforce vaccination requirements at the Hanford Site in Washington state have agreed to drop contractor executives from the litigation, according to a recent federal court filing. The plaintiffs will withdraw claims against Valerie McCain who heads Bechtel’s Waste Treatment […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security will officially remain the management and operations contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two main weapons production sites through September, the agency confirmed Friday. As it attempts to address a controversy about a follow-on award to manage the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak […]

A congressionally chartered commission about U.S. strategic posture is stacked with nuclear-savvy appointees, including the woman who led the National Nuclear Security Administration during most of the Donald Trump administration. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under Trump, will get her direct line to Congress back as one of Sen. Jim […]

A congressionally chartered commission about U.S. strategic posture is stacked with nuclear-savvy appointees, including the woman who led the National Nuclear Security Administration during most of the Donald Trump administration. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under Trump, will get her direct line to Congress back as one of Sen. Jim […]