Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

After a warm up period, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory last week resumed a 50-day final trial run of the plant expected to treat about 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste, federal and state agencies confirmed Tuesday. On Feb. 17 operators of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit […]

Citing a lack of transparency on the agency’s part, a losing bidder for a major nuclear-weapon sites management contract cried foul in January when the National Nuclear Security Administration short-circuited an external review of the controversial award, according to the Government Accountability Office. According to a January decision memorandum from the office, part of the […]

For those not traveling to Phoenix in a couple of weeks for the annual Waste Management Symposia, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is making its Business Opportunities Forum session available online. Topics during the 9:45 a.m. Mountain Time session from the conference at the Phoenix Convention Center will include an update on […]

Next Monday, Feb. 28, is the current target for a return-to-onsite work for most Department of Energy Idaho National Laboratory personnel, according to a recent staff report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which said COVID-19 is still complicating work there. Another Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) memo said COVID is also still […]

The Department of Energy’s Enterprise Assessments office, one of the agency’s internal watchdogs, will check out an incident last summer at the Kansas City National Security Campus that resulted in one employee getting what the site called a mild concussion. Among the things the watchdog will look at — in the wake of the employee […]

In the latest volley of corporate sparring over the sale of a Wisconsin nuclear plant, the decommissioning company purchasing the site has asked the state public works commission to ignore comments made by the head of another company that’s trying to muscle in on the transaction, according to recent documents. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission […]

The interested public has just about one week left to suggest ways the Department of Energy could go about siting a future federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. March 4 is the deadline for submitting comments on DOE’s request for information (RFI) about the interim storage inquiry the agency unveiled in November. DOE […]

The wife of the man who attempted to sell U.S. nuclear submarine secrets to a foreign government in exchange for crypto currency will like her husband go to prison as a co-conspirator, according to a plea agreement published Friday. Diana Toebbe, like her husband, will plead guilty to a single count levied against her, in […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week. February: 22 – BWX Technologies holds its financial conference call on quarterly annual results at 5 p.m. Eastern Time. 24 – The Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Idaho Cleanup Project meets at 8 a.m. […]

Net income from continuing operations at Fluor, Irving, Texas, fell for both the fourth quarter and 2021 as a whole, which the international company and Department of Energy contractor attributed mostly to a massive, pre-tax charge related to a Dutch pension plan, according to a financial release Tuesday morning. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, […]

 A May 2021 radiation exposure of 22 workers resulted in a federal preliminary finding of a low-to-moderate safety problem for the Columbia Generating Station in Richland, Washington, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said recently.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has four levels of classifications for safety problems. Green means a finding of very low safety significance […]

Department of Energy contractor Swift & Staley will stay on at least another month while a federal judge decides whether the firm exceeded the size restrictions for the $160-million Infrastructure Support Services contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to a Friday court filing. In a Feb. 18 order, U.S. Court of Federal Claims […]

Eighteen more states, some with Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed legal briefs this week supporting a U.S. District Court judge’s ruling that blocked President Joe Biden from requiring most federal contractor employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Amicus curiae or “friend of the court” briefs were filed […]

In the state Senate’s latest plan to split the baby, counties surrounding the Savannah River Site would get about 65% of the mega-settlement South Carolina struck with the Department of Energy in 2020 over plutonium storage. State senators on Tuesday unanimously approved sending some $341 million of the settlement to Allendale, Barnwell and Aiken, the […]

A bill aimed at banning the storage of high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico is no more after the state House of Representatives tabled the measure without debate this week. House Bill 127, sponsored State Rep. Matthew McQueen (D), is dead in this year’s session of the state legislature, McQueen told Exchange […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received eight shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during the month of January, according to the latest data on the public website for the disposal facility. During January the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) received four shipments each from the Idaho National Laboratory and an […]

Members of the public should get an opportunity next month to weigh in on the sale of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant to a decommissioning company, the state’s public service panel said Wednesday. It’s the next major public forum for a sale that was shaping up to be an open-and-shut deal until New York-based decommissioning […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has canned a coalition of anti-nuclear groups’ call for a public hearing on a recently-approved order allowing Exelon to transfer ownership of over a dozen of its former nuclear plants to its generation spin-off company, the agency said Monday. The Environmental Law and Policy Center (EPLC) nonprofit and anti-nuclear group Three […]

Fewer than 10 days remain for interested parties to express interest to the Department of Energy about running a demonstration project in Ohio to produce hundreds of kilograms of high assay low enriched uranium for the department. DOE envisions a contract lasting as long as 10 years. The first year could call for completion of […]

The Department of Energy’s $7.6-billion cleanup office will soon move to tear down a land-based reactor in Idaho considered integral to development of the United States first nuclear-powered submarine in the 1950s. The DOE Office of Environmental Management said in a release Tuesday it assumed responsibility for deactivation and demolition of the Submarine 1st Generation […]

A former Naval Reactors employee from Maryland will spend at least 12-and-a-half years in federal prison after his amateur spycraft got him pinched last year by an undercover FBI agent posing as a foreign buyer of U.S. nuclear-propulsion secrets, the Justice Department said. Jonathan Toebbe, 43, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to communicate […]

Maryland-based Amentum, one of the dominant players in the Department of Energy weapons complex, has completed its $1.9-billion purchase of PAE, a Virginia-based defense and government services contractor, the companies said Tuesday. The deal, which PAE characterized as a “merger” was announced by the parties in October. PAE’s “go-shop” period in which it could talk […]

The Department of Energy last week issued Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge its 90-day notice-to-proceed on its potential $8.3-billion, long-term Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup Contract in Tennessee, a DOE spokesperson said in a Tuesday email. The actual transition begins for  United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), made up of Amentum, Jacobs and Honeywell, on Feb. 28, […]

The interested public has until mid-March to submit comments to the Department of Energy on its multi-billion dollar bailout program for struggling nuclear power plants, the agency said in a notice Tuesday. March 17 is the latest date that stakeholders can register their input on DOE’s civil nuclear credit program — a date made final […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration, which requires a regular supply of depleted uranium tetrafluoride for future nuclear-weapon refurbishments, may let a small business coordinate production and delivery of that material to the agency, according to a request for information released last week. The nuclear-weapons agency plans to acquire the uranium tetrafluoride by converting stocks of […]

With increased telecommuting, more feds and contractors are eating their chips and candy at home during the COVID-19 pandemic and this in turn has driven down vending machine proceeds at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to a recent procurement notice. In the notice initially posted Jan. 27 on the […]