Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

While the management contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has ordered its employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by this fall, the legacy nuclear cleanup contractor at the site had not, at deadline. Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) “encourages vaccinations against COVID-19 among its employees and […]

NorthStar Medical technologies, Beloit, Wis., inked a $37-million cooperative agreement with the National Nuclear Security Administration to produce the medical isotope Molybdenum 99, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency announced Friday. NorthStar, which had to put up matching funds to get the $37 million from the agency, will use the cash to produce the isotope […]

Swift and Staley may yet keep a key small business support contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky after the Court of Federal Claims last week granted motions sought by the contractor in a lawsuit.  A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday issued a written opinion, not yet publicly available, in an appeal Swift […]

The Democrat-led House Armed Services Committee has proposed authorizing a little more funding than requested for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s portfolio of nuclear weapons programs in fiscal year 2022, according to a copy of the chairman’s mark. Under the draft National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would be authorized […]

Jill Hruby, who became administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration in the second year of the global COVID-19 pandemic, praised the Los Alamos National Laboratory this week for requiring lab personnel to get vaccinated against the disease. “I applaud the decision that Dr. Mason and Triad have made to protect their people from this […]

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the immediate past administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, joined Westinghouse Government Services’ board of directors, the parent company announced Monday. Westinghouse Government Services is a separately organized LLC and wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear-plant designer, now owned by a subsidiary of Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management. Government Services goes after DOE […]

Federal employees, embedded contractors and others at Department of Energy sites are now expected to divulge whether they have been vaccinated against COVID-19 — and the Los Alamos National Laboratory is requiring its personnel to be fully vaccinated. Triad National Security, the lab’s management and operations contract for the National Nuclear Security Administration, disclosed the […]

An ad hoc committee of the South Carolina legislature was scheduled to discuss on Aug. 24 which of the counties surrounding the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., will share in a $600 million federal plutonium settlement. “I want to make sure our friends from Aiken understand that Aiken County is not the only consideration […]

Weapons Complex Monitor will not be published on Aug. 27, 2021 while the Exchange Monitor takes its annual August recess. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Sept. 3, 2021.  

As of mid-August, Idaho had assessed almost $11 million in civil penalties against the Department of Energy for the federal government’s failure to begin cleanup of sodium-bearing byproducts of nuclear fuel reprocessing at Idaho National Laboratory. The bill was partially offset by about $1.64 million in penalty reductions to account for 273 days when DOE […]

Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published on Aug. 27, 2021 while the Exchange Monitor takes its annual August recess. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Sept. 3, 2021.

An ad hoc committee of the South Carolina legislature was scheduled to discuss on Aug. 24 which of the counties surrounding the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., will share in a $600 million federal plutonium settlement. “I want to make sure our friends from Aiken understand that Aiken County is not the only consideration […]

Operations, including work supporting plutonium pit manufacturing, are back on at Los Alamos’ PF-4 plutonium facility following a 200-gallon flood precipitated by an untrained worker operating a wet van system in the future pit factory. “After three weeks the positive pressure circulating chilled water (PPCCW) system has been restored, with all affected processes being operational […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has released a sources sought note seeking information about a new uranium reserve program that Congress earlier this year ordered the agency to establish. According to the note, the reserve would be a stockpile of uranium hexafluoride converted from newly produced, domestic natural uranium acquired from deposits at existing sites. […]

An ad hoc committee of the South Carolina legislature was scheduled to discuss on Aug. 24 which of the counties surrounding the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., will share in a $600 million federal plutonium settlement. “I want to make sure our friends from Aiken understand that Aiken County is not the only consideration […]

Earnings rose at Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News, Va., in the 2nd quarter, which the shipbuilder and Department of Energy contractor attributed in part to COVID-19’s effects last year on the Virginia-class attack submarine program. Net earnings for the second quarter ended June 30 were $129 million, compared with $53 million in the second quarter of […]

A Republican bid to add the better part of $4 billion for construction of plutonium pit factories to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget failed in the Senate in the Senate this week. A trio of defense-minded Republicans proposed the multiyear funding first as an amendment to the $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved Tuesday, then […]

Five new-to-the-organization faces will join the new Los Alamos directorate in charge of turning the lab into the first national center for plutonium pit production since Rocky Flats ceased production in 1989. Three of these five managers were to be on the job Monday, with two colleagues to follow later this month and next, according […]

This week, not long after senior nuclear-weapons managers gathered outside of Washington and lamented programmatic gear-grinding caused by what they called premature attempts to pin down costs, the House Armed Services chair asked the president to consider shrinking the arsenal, in part over concerns about its affordability. The Biden administration’s forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review should […]

Bradley Wallin will lead Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons programs, settling a succession that began when Kim Budil was promoted to lab director earlier this year, the design lab announced this week. Separately, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that Jeff Harrell, the federal manager for the agency’s Sandia Field Office, retired in […]

With growing federal alarm over the surging numbers of new COVID-19 cases, especially among the unvaccinated, the Department of Energy on Friday confirmed it is imploring government contractors to find ways to get workers to take their shots. The agency acknowledged the effort, spearheaded by Tarak Shah, chief of staff to Secretary Jennifer Granholm, after […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology has yet to receive a Department of Energy package on federal plans for a 2,000-gallon test of the Test Bed Initiative, where some low-activity tank waste from the Hanford Site would be grouted and shipped out-of-state for final disposal. The DOE Office of Environmental Management informed the state agency […]

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality is taking comments between now and Sept. 1 on its conditional approval of a Department of Energy request to push the startup of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit to September 2022. In March, an executive with contractor Fluor Idaho told the Waste Management Symposia that the site might start […]

Robert Edwards III, a seasoned hand around the weapons complex, has retired as manager of the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office, DOE confirmed Thursday. Edwards retired effective July 31 “after 35 years of federal service,” and Joel Bradburne, the deputy manager for the Lexington, Ky., office in charge of the Portsmouth Site in Ohio […]

After sources told Weapons Complex Monitor of the latest federal efforts to stem the surge of new COVID-19 cases, the Department of Energy acknowledged Friday it  is imploring government contractors to find ways to get workers to take the shot. A DOE spokesperson told Weapons Complex Monitor Friday the agency is reaching out to managers […]

After Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) this week mandated state employees get vaccinated for COVID-19 by Oct. 4, the Washington Department of Ecology, state regulator for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, delayed a planned “soft reopening” of its offices previously scheduled for August, an Ecology spokesman said Tuesday. The reopening has been pushed back […]

Bradley Wallin will lead Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons programs, settling a succession that began when Kim Budil was promoted to lab director earlier this year, the design lab announced Monday. Separately, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that Jeff Harrell, the federal manager for the agency’s Sandia Field Office, retired in July. […]

On Monday, not long after senior nuclear-weapons managers gathered outside of Washington and lamented programmatic gear-grinding caused by what they called premature attempts to pin down costs, the House Armed Services chair asked the president to consider shrinking the arsenal, in part over concerns about its affordability.   The Biden administration’s forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review should […]

Five new-to-the-organization faces will join the new Los Alamos directorate in charge of turning the lab into the first national center for plutonium pit production since Rocky Flats ceased production in 1989. Three of these five managers were to be on the job Monday, with two colleagues to follow later this month and next, according […]

A Republican bid to add the better part of $4 billion for construction of plutonium pit factories to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget failed in the Senate on Sunday.  The funding was proposed as an amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure bill that at deadline Monday appeared headed for a final vote in the Senate […]