Transuranic Waste

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., had 14 more employees test positive for COVID-19 between Jan. 13 and Jan. 19, the prime contractor said in a Saturday Twitter post, while a half-dozen more cases were confirmed Sunday at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Eleven of the 14 at the […]

The Government Accountability Office in separate reports this week said Congress should look for a disposal path for transuranic waste now at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York, and the Department of Energy must do a better job of monitoring contractors for potential fraud. As of February 2020, DOE reported spending about $3.1 […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. plans to restart an old ventilation fan soon and was recently criticized by the Department of Energy for poor oversight of a major infrastructure project, according to a recently released scorecard. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) also accepted fewer shipments in the pandemic-beleaguered 2020, taking in […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., took in 10 shipments of transuranic waste during December and 192 for all of 2020. The 2020 figure is a major drop-off, 100 fewer than the total of 292 for 2019, according to data from DOE’s public website for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant […]

This week the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico plans a short-duration test of its idle 700-C ventilation fan to increase underground airflow during certain work. The testing will last about four hours, according to a press release issued late Friday by the DOE’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Plant […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is reviewing a request by Waste Control Specialists to continue holding drums of potentially-combustible transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory at its Andrews County, Texas facility into December 2022. About 110 containers of the problem waste from the Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico have basically been […]

In a long-awaited report published this week, the Department of Energy estimated it could save up to $230 billion by lowering the classification level of certain radioactive waste from nuclear-weapons production — and while some neighbors of nuclear-cleanup sites welcomed the idea, it remained far from certain that Congress will give the agency clear legal […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is reviewing a request by Waste Control Specialists to continue holding drums of potentially-combustible transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory at its Andrews County, Texas facility into December 2022. About 110 containers of the problem waste from the Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico have basically been […]

While the coronavirus pandemic affected nuclear cleanup at the Department of Energy in ways great and small, it did not slow down the acquisition process in 2020, when the Environmental Management Office awarded about $31 billion worth of new cleanup contracts. That includes $17 billion of contracts during the 2020 calendar year and some $14 […]

Concerns about the surging COVID-19 pandemic in New Mexico led the Department of Energy to reduce on-site staffing and slow certain operations at both the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, according to recent documents published by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  At Los Alamos, operations are affected for both […]

The Department of Energy extended the bid deadline for a new Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contract by one week, to Dec. 23. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the extra time in a package of questions and answers published Dec. 11 on a procurement website. Previously, bids were due Dec. 14. In a final Q&A […]

WIPP Takes in 15 Shipments During November The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 15 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during November. There were five from the Idaho National Laboratory, six from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, three from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and one from the […]

The Department of Energy extended the bid deadline for a new Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contract by one week, to Dec. 23. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the extra time in a package of questions and answers on the business published Friday on a procurement website. Previously, bids were due today. The DOE acknowledged […]

The Department of Energy has picked up a six-month option keeping North Wind Portage on the job as the technical assistance contractor at the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico until June 2021. The basic contract and associated task orders were extended six months from Dec. 4, last Friday, to June 3, 2021, a spokesperson […]

The Department of Energy has picked up a six-month option keeping North Wind Portage on the job as the technical assistance contractor at the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico until June 2021. The basic contract and associated task orders were extended six months from Dec. 4, last Friday, to June 3, 2021, a spokesperson […]

The Oregon Department of Energy is studying updated rules governing transport and disposal of radioactive materials within the state, which could potentially sock violators with millions of dollars in fines. The state department’s Energy Facility Siting Council has been working on tightening Oregon’s radioactive waste rules since May, according to a slide presentation put together […]

The Department of Energy says it will be up to the winner of the Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contract to train its own employees and the cost will be borne by the new contractor. That is one of the takeaways from a package of questions and answers published Wednesday by DOE on the potential $100-million small […]

Cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho expects to file a formal response this month to the Department of Energy’s proposed $580,700 civil penalty over an April 2018 accident at the Idaho National Laboratory where four drums of radioactive sludge overheated and blew off their lids. “We are reviewing the preliminary notice of violation and considering our response, […]

Leaving 110 stranded drums of potentially combustible transuranic waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory at a commercial waste facility in Texas for two more years poses no significant risk, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday. The commission issued its finding Tuesday in the Federal Register, responding to an August request from […]

The current $44-million Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contract is set to expire this week for a North Wind subsidiary at the Department of Energy field office in New Mexico. The DOE can exercise an option to keep North Wind Portage on board through June 3, 2021 while the Office of Environmental Management continues to look for […]

Leaving 110 stranded drums of potentially combustible transuranic waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory at a commercial waste facility in Texas for two more years poses no significant risk, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday. The commission issued its finding Tuesday in the Federal Register, responding to an August request from […]

The management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico learned of 13 new cases of COVID-19 at the disposal facility just prior to Thanksgiving. Nuclear Waste Partnership, DOE’s prime contractor at the transuranic waste disposal site, reported the latest set of infections in a press release last […]

The venture that manages the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico will have until Dec. 21 to reply to a lawsuit brought last month by the construction contractor it fired this summer after slower-than-anticipated progress on a major new underground ventilation system. The motion for an extension, filed by Nuclear Waste […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management anticipates issuing a solicitation for a new long-term cleanup contract next month at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. That is the last request for proposal (RFP) the agency’s nuclear-cleanup office plans to issue this calendar year, according to a quarterly update posted Thursday on a federal […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 25 shipments of transuranic waste during October, which is marginally better than the 21 shipments during the same month in 2019. That is according to DOE’s public database for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), which also shows shipments for this pandemic-hobbled year […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could run out of space if the number of waste drums bound for the New Mexico site keeps increasing, or if a new underground accounting system is thrown out by the courts, the Government Accountability Office said Thursday. The report landed as the site, DOE’s only deep-underground […]

As is the case nationally, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on the 16 nuclear cleanup properties overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, including a death at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant that, a state regulator said, showed the site cannot protect people from the disease. The prime […]

The congressman representing the Hanford Site has tested positive for COVID-19, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant uncovered 20 more cases among its workforce, and someone at the Los Alamos National Laboratory has died from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose district includes the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, announced […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 25 shipments of transuranic waste during October, which is marginally better than the 21 shipments during the same month in 2019. That is according to DOE’s public database for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), which also shows shipments for this pandemic-hobbled year […]

An online briefing on a potential $100-million technical services contract at the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico drew about 60 people last week as prospective bidders prepare for the Dec. 14 application deadline. Incumbent North Wind Group, which has a $44-million contract that began in November 2015 and could run until […]