Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

As of March 9, 427 intermodal containers filled with radiologically-contaminated soil or debris had been shipped to EnergySolutions from the Balance of Site Facilities cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York, a contractor representative told the West Valley Citizen Task Force meeting last week. Kelly Wooley, deputy general manager for the West […]

A Hanford occupational health contractor agreed to pay almost $3 million in restitution and penalties for false financial statements that enabled it to obtain a COVID-related loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration, which was later forgiven. The loan ended up in the personal bank accounts of the owners of HPMCorp., Holly and Grover Cleveland […]

Anne Marie White, the last Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, is opening a new distillery in her hometown in Michigan. White and Scott Anderson, another longtime hand on the old DOE weapons complex, will soon open “The Honorable Distillery” in a renovated movie theater in downtown Marquette, Mich., […]

A regulatory domino fell Thursday at the plant where Westinghouse fabricates tritium producing burnable absorber rods for the National Nuclear Security Administration, clearing the way for cleanup of contaminated disposal lagoons on the South Carolina property. On Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an exemption to commission regulations clearing U.S. Ecology to accept waste from […]

Members of the Hanford Advisory Board said Wednesday they should have a voice in the Department of Energy’s plans to diversify the panel that provides policy recommendations on cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state. During an online meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board (HAB), many members said they want to provide input on […]

The federal government must prioritize changing U.S. nuclear waste law as it eyes a spent fuel storage solution, a community stakeholders group said during a panel discussion Wednesday. Amending the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) is “one of the things that needs to happen” before the federal government can move forward on interim storage, Kara […]

Department of Energy and Washington state Department of Ecology managers reassured the Hanford Advisory Board Wednesday their agencies remain interested in the Test Bed Initiative to grout 2,000 gallons of low-activity tank waste that would be shipped out of state. Brian Vance, the DOE’s manager for the Hanford Site, expects the Nuclear Regulation Commission to […]

Public input about the Department of Energy’s proposed consent-based siting process for a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel could be published by March 31, an agency official said Wednesday. A full collection of responses DOE received as part of its November request for information (RFI) should be available “by the end of […]

After a recent hearing on the proposed sale of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant, decommissioning hopeful NorthStar renewed calls last week for the state to reject the transaction, according to public filings. EnergySolutions’ proposal to purchase Kewaunee Power Station from Dominion Energy “may be the worst proposal ever put before” the Wisconsin Public Service Commission […]

New Mexico’s attorney general moved his fight against commercial interim storage to an appeals court after a District Court threw out his first challenge to the site in early March, according to recent court documents. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has until May 9 to respond to state Attorney General Hector Balderas’s most recent arguments against […]

UCOR, the Amentum-Jacobs partnership in charge of remediation at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, earned 98% of total potential fee or $24.7 million, during a seven-month period ended Oct. 31, according to a scorecard released this week. The contractor, being succeeded by a joint venture made up of Amentum, Jacobs and […]

With declining demand for employee vaccination against COVID-19, the occupational medical provider serving the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington Site will soon be offering only one option, Moderna, for initial inoculations or booster shots. The provider of occupational medical services, HMP Corp. (HMPC), is dropping the Pfizer shot after March 24 and discontinuing […]

Many full-timers working directly for the Los Alamos National Laboratory Laboratory received a modest raise earlier this month as part of broad retention efforts by the National Nuclear Security Administration, according to a letter from the lab’s director. “We are pleased that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has granted this increase,” Thomas Mason, director […]

In a confirmation hearing Tuesday morning, the Joe Biden administration’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons programs from headquarters in Washington pledged his support for the agency’s program of record and agreed to review the agency’s plan to produce new plutonium pits if confirmed. The nominee, Marvin Adams, a professor of nuclear […]

As the nuclear-weapons production complex begins a shift into overdrive, non-essential personnel at the Pantex site were asked to delay their arrival starting with Monday’s graveyard shift after a late-season ice storm moved in over the Texas panhandle. Only a day after the spring equinox, the system dropped a wintery mix over Amarillo and the […]

Scott Sax, top contractor boss for Central Plateau cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state is retiring in May and will be succeeded by the head of another Amentum-led Hanford joint venture, the company said Monday. Sax, president and project manager for Central Plateau Cleanup Co., is retiring effective May 16 […]

With the COVID-19 pandemic easing, most of the Washington, D.C. headquarters staff for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is back at the office  although employees have the option to continue to telecommute with their manager’s approval, a spokesperson for the agency said in an email. “The Resident Inspectors were onsite providing oversight during the […]

The Nevada National Security Site disposed of roughly 550,000 cubic feet of radioactive waste from other federal sites around the country during 2021, according to the Department of Energy. The total includes classified and low-level or mixed low-level radioactive waste, the DOE Office of Environmental Management said in its Strategic Vision for the former Nevada […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission violated federal law when it licensed a proposed commercial facility in Texas to store nearly half of the country’s spent nuclear fuel, a coalition of anti-nuclear groups argued Friday as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the agency. NRC, which in September gave its blessing to Waste Control Specialists-Orano USA joint […]

A bill in the Massachusetts state legislature would prevent a company decommissioning a nuclear power plant in the commonwealth from releasing irradiated wastewater from the site into a nearby bay. If it becomes law, the measure proposed by state Sen. Susan Moran (D) would ban the disposal of radioactive waste into “in any coastal or […]

A new 20,000-square-foot high-explosives fabrication facility at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant should be up and running by January 2024.  Pantex broke ground on the new Advanced Fabrication Facility in Amarillo, Texas, the week of March 11 and was scheduled to move into the building in late 2023, said Jason Bohne, spokesman for […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: 21 – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was scheduled to host a public meeting about its proposed decommissioning rule for nuclear power plants. Officially, “Regulatory Improvements for Production and Utilization Facilities Transitioning to Decommissioning.” Streaming online or […]

Hoisting equipment fell and struck the ground just feet from where people were working  recently on a new Utility Shift at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., according to a federal safety board’s regular monthly update on the disposal site. A Nuclear Waste Partnership subcontractor “reported a near miss event […]

Top federal and contractor managers at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico said Thursday they still hope to beat a 2026 date for operation of a new underground ventilation project criticized recently by the Government Accountability Office. There will be no additional public written report issued on corrective actions being […]

A congressionally chartered commission about U.S. strategic posture is stacked with nuclear-savvy appointees, including the woman who led the National Nuclear Security Administration during most of the Donald Trump administration. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under Trump, will get her direct line to Congress back as one of Sen. Jim […]