Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

A new submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead will be ready for production around 2029, and the National Nuclear Security Administration still hasn’t missed deliveries to the military because of COVID, according to the agency’s latest annual unclassified progress report. Notionally, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will produce the final proof-of-concept model, or first production unit, […]

The Department of Energy kicked off solicitation Wednesday for a potential $120 million small business Technical Assistance Contract for certain Office of Environmental Management field sites, including the cleanup office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The final request for proposals (RFP) for the multiple-award indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract was announced in […]

Barring settlement, a federal racial discrimination lawsuit brought by a security officer against the Department of Energy contractor running the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., would go to trial early next year. In an order last month, U.S. District Judge James Browning scheduled a trial starting Jan. 9, 2023 in litigation brought by […]

Five elected representatives from the Aiken, S.C., area said this week they planned to carry on a fight in the state legislature for a bigger share of federal settlement money related to weapon-usable plutonium at the Savannah River Site. With Rep. Bart Blackwell (R-Aiken County) acting as spokesman Monday, the state house members from the […]

Contractor inexperience with big-ticket projects and the Department of Energy’s failure to fully account for risks contributed to mushrooming cost and a three-year slide in schedule for the new underground ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to a government watchdog report published Tuesday. Since 2018, the cost estimate for […]

The prime contractor for the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina is inviting inquiries from “minority serving institutions” interested in helping carry out research for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Battelle Savannah River Alliance said in a March 11 notice on the federal procurement website (sam.gov) expressions of interest for such […]

Although Holtec International is still considering a former New Jersey nuclear power plant as a potential site for a future advanced reactor, the company had yet to make a decision as of Tuesday, a spokesperson said. Holtec has made “no firm commitment to date” on whether it will build its SMR-160 advanced reactor at Oyster […]

The Secretary of Energy of Energy will announce her next chief of staff — and more — “soon,” Tarak Shah, the outgoing chief, told all hands Tuesday in a farewell message. Shah, who hit the campaign trail for Biden and lead beachhead teams into the Forrestal Building in Washington, will depart in April, he said […]

The Department of Energy received 10 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico during February. A March 14 search of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) public website showed 10 shipments for the month taking place between Feb. 7 and Feb. 24. Five were received from the Idaho […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory appeared more or less on track to recategorize one part of its planned plutonium complex as a hazard category three facility, allowing for increased storage of the fissile material there, according to a recent report by the government’s independent nuclear watchdog. In February, Los Alamos prime Triad National Security wrapped up […]

Security guards and other plaintiffs suing President Joe Biden and the Department of Energy over COVID19 workforce vaccination requirements at the Hanford Site in Washington state have agreed to drop contractor executives from the litigation, according to a recent federal court filing. The plaintiffs will withdraw claims against Valerie McCain who heads Bechtel’s Waste Treatment […]