Transuranic Waste

NWP Awards WIPP Records Subcontract to TFE WC Monitor 5/9/2014 Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based TFE, Inc. has won a new subcontract to provide records management services at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The subcontract is worth $24.5 million over five years and is set to begin July 1, according to a release from Nuclear Waste Partnership, […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/2/2014 While the cause of the Feb. 14 radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant still remains unknown, crews entering the mine this week discovered that magnesium oxide bags covering waste drums at the likely leak site were disturbed. After initial entries to WIPP’s Panel 7 in recent weeks, this […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/2/2014 As the Department of Energy considers its options for disposing of surplus plutonium, a new study released this week suggests that downblending the material and disposing of it at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant may be the least expensive alternative. While DOE’s current plans calls for the material to be […]

WCS, DOE Look to Change Acceptance Criteria Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 5/2/2014 More than 75 of the transuranic waste containers slated for shipment from Los Alamos National Laboratory to Waste Control Specialists may not meet the current WCS acceptance criteria, complicating a high-profile push to remove all aboveground LANL transuranic waste by the end of […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/25/2014  The  “preventable” Feb. 14 radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was preceded by poor maintenance, safety culture issues by contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership and lax oversight by Department of Energy headquarters and the Carlsbad Field Office, according to a DOE Accident Investigation Board report released this week. While […]

DOE Appoints Senderling, Teynor to Head Federal Recovery Team Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/18/2014 While this week marked two months since the Feb. 14 radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, teams entering the mine still have not identified the source of the incident. In the past week, the two recovery teams entered the […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/11/2014 The push to identify the cause of the Feb. 14 radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant continued this week, as workers moved to establish a third base underground. Last week, workers set up two bases of operations underground in areas free of contamination. While the Department of Energy […]

  Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/11/2014 With operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant currently on hold, and the timetable for their resumption unclear, Idaho Treatment Group, LLC, is in discussions with the Department of Energy on modifying how it will be able to earn fee for operating the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project. ITG […]

All shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have been halted after a fire at the facility started yesterday at a truck used to transport salt. All workers were evacuated from underground, and several were treated at an area hospital for smoke inhalation and released, according to the Department of Energy. There was no waste […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant remains closed to nonessential personnel as officials investigate what set off an airborne radiation monitor at the facility Friday night. A continuous air monitor detected airborne radiation underground at about 11:30 p.m. Friday, automatically triggering the filtration mode in WIPP’s ventilation system in an effort to prevent contamination at the […]

Some radioactive elements were discovered in a filter located at an access road aboveground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Department of Energy said last night. This comes after last Friday officials said that an underground air monitor at WIPP detected airborne radiation, triggering filtration of air going from the mine to aboveground. “Recent […]

Additional samples collected at “numerous locations on and around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant” have tested positive for “slightly elevated levels of airborne radioactive concentrations” matching waste disposed at WIPP, DOE said yesterday. Officials have said that most likely radiation escaping a waste drum underground at WIPP set off an underground air monitor the night […]

The Department of Energy and contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership yesterday notified 13 workers at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant of positive preliminary bioassay results. The employees were at the site during the Feb. 14 event that resulted in an underground air monitor indicating a likely leak of radiation from a waste drum. “All employees present […]

When the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant may reopen remains uncertain, but the Department of Energy is “exploring all options” to keep transuranic waste efforts moving ahead, DOE cleanup chief David Huizenga said yesterday at the Waste Management Symposia. Operations at WIPP are on hold after DOE detected a radiation leak Feb. 14. “In addition to […]

Due to the continued shutdown of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, New Mexico is extending deadlines for storing waste aboveground at the site, according to an order by the New Mexico Environment Department released yesterday. The extension only applies to waste that had reached the facility but had not been placed underground before WIPP was […]

The Department of Energy is holding a town hall meeting in Carlsbad, N.M., today to discuss recovery activities after the shutdown of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant due to a fire and radiation release. Scheduled to speak are DOE cleanup chief Dave Huizenga, DOE Deputy Under Secretary for Management and Performance David Klaus, DOE Carlsbad […]

Over the weekend monitoring equipment was lowered into the underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for the first time since a radiation release was detected on Feb. 14. Workers lowered radiation and air quality instruments Friday and Saturday down the salt handling and air intake shafts, and initial findings showed “no detectable radioactive contamination […]

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) pushed for daily updates from the Department of Energy on the situation at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant at a town hall meeting he hosted Friday in Carlsbad, N.M., the day after the Department of Energy held a similar public meeting there. Pearce said he held the meeting to ensure transparency, […]

The Department of Energy yesterday announced it has approved a plan for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant workforce and will also be holding weekly town hall meetings on WIPP every Thursday. Site contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership submitted the workforce plan yesterday, and it calls for utilizing its employees both for identifying the cause of last […]

URS yesterday named Bob McQuinn as the new president and project manager of Waste Isolation Pilot Plant contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, demoting NWP head Farok Sharif to project manager of the TRU Waste Program. The management change was in response to recent incidents at WIPP, including a fire and radiation release last month. "To strengthen our […]

The new deputy manager at the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office, Dana Bryson, started this week. The position oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and the National Transuranic Program. Bryson comes from DOE’s Richland Operations Office, where he served as River Corridor Division Director. “Dana Bryson is currently in travel status and assumed the […]

House and Senate leaders last night agreed to a broad deal that breaks a logjam on negotiations for the Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, and a House provision that would have allowed non-defense transuranic waste to be sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is not in the final bill, WC Monitor has […]

An article in yesterday’s Weapons Complex Morning Briefing incorrectly suggested that Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M). had told an environmental activist that he opposed a provision offered by Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) that would open the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant to non-defense transuranic waste. The Pearce provision had been included as an amendment to the House version of […]

The Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office has selected Mike Brown as its new director of the Office of Quality Assurance, DOE announced yesterday. Brown has 30 years of experience at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and since 2000 has been the CBFO ‘s transportation packaging manager. “The QA function is critical to our work,” […]

The engineering and fabrication firm NFT yesterday completed its acquisition of the URS division in charge of maintaining and certifying waste management containers at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. URS had performed the work at the Engineered Products Division TRUPACT maintenance business under a subcontract to the WIPP contractor, URS-led Nuclear Waste Partnership. That subcontract […]

Oak Ridge TRU Waste Processing Center contractor Wastren Advantage, Inc., laid off 26 workers last week, mainly due to a stop-work order for the Sludge Processing Facility Buildout Project. The Department of Energy told the contractor in late August to stop work on the project to evaluate its approach for treating the site’s remote-handled sludge […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory suspended its transuranic waste shipping project because of the government shutdown yesterday, telling approximately 200 subcontractor employees to stand down, the lab confirmed. Four shipments already loaded and ready to be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will still be sent, but processing of the transuranic waste is being stopped, […]

With New Mexico’s weapons laboratories initiating shutdown plans this week, four of the state’s lawmakers want to make sure contractor employees at the labs get paid if they’re out of work. House-passed legislation that is supported by the Obama Administration would ensure that furloughed federal workers are retroactively paid for time during the shutdown, but […]

The Department of Energy has rejected a suggestion from some potential bidders on the new contract to manage the Oak Ridge Transuranic Waste Processing Center to remove a call for expertise with transuranic sludge processing equipment from a recently released sources sought notice. At issue is a provision in the sources sought notice asking companies […]

Wastren Advantage Inc. won’t face a financial penalty for an incident that occurred at the Oak Ridge Transuranic Waste Processing Center earlier this year in which workers were inadvertently cut off from their breathing air during activities in the Box Breakdown Area of the TWPC. In a July 30 enforcement letter, the Department of Energy’s […]