Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The newly-elected governor of Massachusetts last week signaled that she would stand against a proposal from Holtec International that would see irradiated wastewater from a shuttered nuclear power plant released into the Cape Cod Bay, local media reported. Speaking at a community event in South Yarmouth, Mass., Gov. Maura Healey (D) said that the Bay […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans by Oct. 31 to have permanent leadership for the three new procurement- and infrastructure-focused offices it created last year when it broke up the former Office of Acquisition and Project Management, according to a Government Accountability Office report published Tuesday. The agency “will establish specific outcome-oriented goals and performance […]

Amid the winter rainstorms that pounding California, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has temporarily curtailed all but essential activity at its experimental test site in the San Francisco Bay Area, a spokesperson said Tuesday. “Site 300 has been in minimum safe configuration Jan. 4-5 and Jan. 9-11, due to adverse weather and infrastructure conditions on […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management last month suspended heat up of a long-anticipated waste treatment facility at the Idaho National Laboratory after a small leak of “non-radioactive, non-hazardous solids,” was discovered, DOE said Tuesday. The suspension came Dec. 29, 10 days after beginning warmup to prepare for radiological operations at the Integrated […]

Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge plans this summer to hire a subcontractor to start site preparation for a new landfill to dispose of 2.2-million cubic yards of low-level waste at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, a federal spokesperson said Tuesday. “There are still several significant steps remaining,” before United Cleanup Oak […]

Alaron Nuclear Services, a Veolia affiliate, said in a Jan. 5 news release it has finished a project to double the rail capacity at its low-level radioactive waste transfer site in Western Pennsylvania. The Veolia Nuclear Solutions – Federal Services business said completion of the project enables up to 24 rail cars on the Alaron […]

As the company in charge of California’s last operating nuclear power plant seeks federal approval to operate the facility for an extra five years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is weighing whether to extend the plant’s license to store spent nuclear fuel on site. NRC is considering an application from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) that, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is adding about $10 million of work to the first phase of Nuclear Fuel Services’ contract to purify uranium for the secondary stages of nuclear weapons, according to a procurement note published Monday. The new work, which the nuclear-weapons agency did not describe in Monday’s sole source justification, brings the […]

More than 20 companies expressed interest to the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management in landing a slice of various nuclear remediation projects set aside for small business. Twenty-one signed up by Dec. 20 to be on an “interested vendors” list, for the Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning and Removal procurement, according to a DOE Environmental […]

The company in charge of decommissioning a shuttered Massachusetts nuclear power plant is pulling together the required information for a federal permit modification that would let the company discharge irradiated wastewater from the facility, a spokesperson said Monday. Holtec International, which is currently dismantling Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, is “preparing the modification request” for the […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 11: Meeting: The National Academies’ Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board holds a virtual meeting starting at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on its review of the continued analysis of supplemental treatment of Low-Activity Waste at the Department […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration backdated letters to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and claimed its own safety rules actually permitted safety deficiencies the rules were supposed to prevent, the board said. In a letter late last year to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, the board complained about “the recent practice of the National […]

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board inspectors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington spotted a questionable safety practice, and a reluctance to talk about it, at one of the tank farms last month, according to a recent report. “A resident inspector observed an event investigation meeting after workers in the SX tank farm […]

The operator of California’s last nuclear power plant, which just got a new lease on life, said that the facility’s system for managing reactor coolant pressure was leaking, according to a recent letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. During an October refueling outage at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) discovered a […]

The mayor of Carlsbad, N.M., Dale Janway, said in a Sunday newspaper column he wants the Department of Energy’s deep underground disposal site for transuranic waste to stay open for a long time and is wary of the New Mexico Environment Department gaining more clout over the future of the facility. “It is certainly our […]

The potential environmental effects of a proposed cleanup plan for a shuttered uranium mine in New Mexico likely will not stand in the way of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approving the cleanup, according to an agency report published Wednesday. The “adverse environmental impacts” of the proposed license amendment for the United Nuclear Corporation’s Church Rock […]

Another federal agency has financially penalized FirstEnergy Corp. for its involvement in a 2019 bribery scandal. In a Dec. 15 agreement, FirstEnergy agreed to pay a $3.86 million fine to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for not being up front with FERC auditors, between 2015 and the subsequent 2019 scandal, about almost $60 million […]

A federal judge in Eastern Washington, who twice allowed 314 employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to amend their complaint over government COVID-19 vaccination requirements, was justified in dismissing the case, Justice Department attorneys told the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals Dec. 23. Only seven of the plaintiffs in the David Donovan versus […]

Rick McLeod, the longtime executive director of the Savannah River Site Community Reuse Organization, officially retired from the post this week although he will stay on while the South Carolina-based group looks for a successor, he said in a Jan. 1 post on LinkedIn. The organization is currently searching for a new boss. “I’m on […]

Lynchburg, Va., -based BWX Technologies said Wednesday it has promoted Ronald (Chip) Whitford, Jr., to a senior vice president post succeeding Thomas McCabe, who will retire from the nuclear company this summer. Effective this week, Whitford is now senior vice president, general counsel, chief compliance officer and corporate secretary, BWXT said in a press release. […]

The 118th Congress that began Tuesday was set to bring with it a few changes to Congressional representation for the states, regions and cities hosting Department of Energy nuclear-weapon sites. In the Senate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), an author with no political experience and an avowed ally of former President Donald Trump (R) succeeded the […]

In a majority opinion, a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found President Joe Biden overstepped his authority by using the Procurement Act to require virtually all federal contract workers be vaccinated against COVID-19. “The President asks this Court to ratify an exercise of proprietary authority that would […]

The fiscal 2023 omnibus budget that the 117th Congress passed just before adjourning before Christmas includes $20 million for replacement of a middle school that closed in May 2019 due to concern over radiological contamination from the Department of Energy’s adjacent Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. The $20 million toward replacement of the Zahns Corner […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to award Converdyn a five-year, sole-source contract to convert triuranium octoxide into uranium hexafluoride as part of a new federal uranium stockpiling program. Converdyn, a Metropolis, Ill., partnership of Honeywell and General atomics, operates the only U.S.-based conversion facility capable of turning triuranium octoxide into uranium hexafluoride, the National […]