Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

COVID-19 is surging across the country, with the rate of new cases at most major National Nuclear Security Administration host sites eclipsing their week-ago totals, and the agency cumulative racking up more than 100 new cases for the fourth week in a row. Mixing in 40 recoveries this week, that made for 303 confirmed cases […]

Although it will nationalize the operations of its Atomic Weapons Establishment next June, the United Kingdom still plans to carve out a role in its nuclear weapons complex for industry, which managed the establishment for most of the last 30 years. “The new business model will see AWE [Atomic Weapons Establishment] plc continue to draw […]

A former number-two at the National Nuclear Security Administration would not rule out a return to government service on the eve of the presidential election. “No comment,” Madelyn Creedon, principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in the final years of the Barack Obama administration, said in a virtual meeting when asked […]

The United Kingdom is nationalizing operations of its Atomic Weapons Establishment after letting contractors run it for nearly three decades, the Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence announced Monday. The Atomic Weapons Establishment will become a wholly-owned, arms-length body controlled by the Ministry of Defence, which will take over the heart of the U.K. nuclear weapons complex […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the ExchangeMonitor staff is tracking this week. Monday: Financial results are out today from BWX Technologies for the quarter ended Sept. 30. U.S. Strategic Command kicks off its annual Strategic Command Deterrence Symposium — it’s virtual. Tuesday: This is election day as U.S. […]

Next week, the National Nuclear Security Administration will host a second virtual meeting with the public to discuss a planned release of tritium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to a notice posted online. The second virtual meeting about venting flanged tritium waste containers is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 5, from 5 p.m. to […]

By early next year, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and the Department of Energy could sign a memorandum of understanding about how to share information under a two year-old DOE order that limits interactions between the federal agencies. On Tuesday, the board — a roughly $30-million-a-year agency with a staff of around 100 full-timers […]

At deadline Friday, winter weather had finally blown over New Mexico and Texas after an early-week barrage that gave all the nuclear-weapons sites in those states at one snow day. Non-essential dayshift employees at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, were most affected by an early winter storm that crusted the panhandle counties of Potter […]

A third National Nuclear Security Administration employee has died from COVID-19, and the agency recorded more than 100 new cases among its workforce for the second consecutive week, a spokesperson said Friday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency declined to identify the person who died, but did say they worked at the Nevada […]

By early next year, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and the Department of Energy could sign a memorandum of understanding about how to share information under a two year-old DOE order that limits interactions between the federal agencies. On Tuesday, the board — a roughly $30-million-a-year agency with a staff of around 100 full-timers […]

By early next year, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and the Department of Energy could sign a memorandum of understanding about how to share information under a two year-old DOE order that limits interactions between the federal agencies. On Tuesday, the board — a roughly $30-million-a-year agency with a staff of around 100 full-timers […]

Next week, the National Nuclear Security Administration will host a second virtual meeting with the public to discuss a planned release of tritium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to a notice posted online. The second virtual meeting about venting flanged tritium waste containers is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 5, from 5 p.m. to […]

Steven Lawrence, until this year the manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Nevada Field Office, appeared to tweet Tuesday afternoon that he is receiving chemotherapy. As I sit in the infusion center getting chemo, my heart goes out to everyone dealing with cancer or other life changing events, including our caregivers…. Stay strong and […]

The barrage of winter weather in the Western U.S. closed down some nuclear weapons sites again on Tuesday, with the Pantex plant bracing for a third straight snow day for non-essential workers. Pantex canned the Wednesday day shift on account of snowy and icy conditions after doing the same on Monday and Tuesday, according to […]

Amid worsening winter weather in the western U.S., the Los Alamos National Laboratory called for a delayed opening on Tuesday after sending personnel home early on Monday.  Likewise, the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, ordered non-essential workers on two of three shifts to stay home on Tuesday, and told anyone who could telework to do […]

A story in the Oct. 19 edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing incorrectly attributed remarks made by Scott Cannon of the National Nuclear Security Administration to the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility. The Monitor has revised the story.

Non-essential day-shift personnel at the Pantex Plant got a two-hour delay on Monday because of foul weather including ice and snow in the Texas panhandle, the site said. Amarillo, Texas, and the rest of the High Plains region — plus many points east — chilled down rapidly on Monday after a warm-to-seasonable weekend, and the […]

The Department of Energy on Sunday finalized changes to its rule about nuclear safety management that, according to the government’s independent nuclear health and safety watchdog, could encourage contractors to unsafely increase radioactive hazards in old buildings. After about two years of deliberation, the agency published its changes to  Title 10, Part 830 of the Code of […]

The Department of Energy on Sunday finalized changes to its rule about nuclear safety management that, according to the government’s independent nuclear health and safety watchdog, could encourage contractors to unsafely increase radioactive hazards in old buildings. After about two years of deliberation, the agency published its changes to  Title 10, Part 830 of the Code of […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s radiation-sniffing helicopter started a campaign of low-altitude flights over Washington this week, part of an effort to safeguard against a nuclear-armed attack on January’s looming presidential inauguration. The agency routinely measures background radiation ahead of large public gatherings to create a base level against which the source of a radiological […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s leader should get a fixed term, senior agency managers should be exempted from Senate approval and the stockpile’s steward should strive for a closer contractual relationship with its nuclear-weapons laboratories, a National Academies report concluded. The 14-member, joint National Academy of Public Administration and National Academy of Sciences panel that […]

As with the whole country, COVID-19 hit the National Nuclear Security Administration hard this week, when the agency recorded more than 100 new cases, a spokesperson said. For the week ended Friday, 73 contractor and federal employees recovered from their bouts with the disease caused by the novel coronavirus — but the 107 new cases […]

A story in Wednesday’s Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, “NNSA to Start Environmental Review of Dilute and Dispose This Year; Scope Unclear,” should have said that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is in Carlsbad, N.M.

The Department of Energy on Sunday finalized changes to its rule about nuclear safety management that, according to the government’s independent nuclear health and safety watchdog, could encourage contractors to unsafely increase radioactive hazards in old buildings. After about two years of deliberation, the agency published its changes to  Title 10, Part 830 of the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s radiation-sniffing helicopter started a campaign of low-altitude flights over Washington on Monday, part of an effort to safeguard against a nuclear-armed attack on January’s looming presidential inauguration. The agency routinely measures background radiation ahead of large public gatherings to create a base level against which the source of a radiological […]

A story in Friday’s RadWaste Monitor (“More NRC COVID-19 Guidance Coming in October Letter”) should have said that Michael Mahoney is a project manager in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office Nuclear Reactor Regulation, not the office’s director.

Sister Ardeth Platte, the nun who breached the perimeter of the Y-12 National Security Site in 2010 as part of an anti-nuclear protest, died in her sleep last week in Washington at age 84, media reported. Platte, by the time of her death a well-known anti-nuclear-weapons protester, served time in jail for her trespassing — […]

Glovebox component vendor Central Research Laboratories, Red Wing, Minn., again popped up in connection with a glovebox breach at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility, this time after a close call involving a plutonium machining operator.  On Sept. 23, an “ergonomic” glovebox glove assembly provided by Central Research Laboratories unexpectedly disconnected from the […]

Touch ‘Em All: NNSA Administrator Rounds Out Tour of Nuclear Security Enterprise With visits this week to the Kansas City National Security Complex in Missouri and a pair of naval nuclear sites in New York, Lisa Gordon Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, wrapped up a four-mouth tour of the civilian agency’s main […]

It was another week of climbing COVID-19 cases at the National Nuclear Security Administration at deadline Friday, when the agency saw new infections outpace recoveries and leave the civilian nuke steward with 33 active cases. Cases among National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) federal employees and contractors at the eight major sites across the country rose […]