Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

A hearing was scheduled Thursday in a New Mexico court as part of a lawsuit in which 34 identified employees have asked a state judge to block Los Alamos National Laboratory’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate a day before they could be fired for not complying with it. The hearing was on the slate for 8:00 a.m. […]

The Department of Energy has selected one new member and reappointed five current members to the Paducah Citizens Advisory Board, the agency said recently in a press release. Eric Butterbaugh, an analyst for a computer firm, is the new appointee and will serve a two-year term. The five incumbent members receiving a new two-year term […]

The proposed nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile might yet survive the Joe Biden administration’s nuclear posture review thanks among other things to the reported discovery of new Chinese missile silos, the official who coordinated the Donald Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review said Wednesday. “I thought perhaps at the beginning of this process that this particular weapon […]

A former Sandia employee who pleaded guilty to ripping off the labs for tens of thousands of dollars or more worth of merchandise is still fighting with the government over the exact value of the ill-gotten goods — a figure that could mean an extra two months in prison, or not, court papers show. Joshua […]

A member of the South Carolina legislature from Aiken, Rep. Melissa Oremus, (R), urged Gov. Henry McMaster (R) to help stop planned firings of holdouts who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the Fluor-led management contractor at the federal complex along the Georgia […]

A pump-and-treat system that captures groundwater contamination near radioactive waste tanks inside the Hanford Site in Washington would be expanded under a joint interim record of decision announced Wednesday by state and federal agencies.  The interim decision for groundwater operable units in Hanford’s 200 East Area — 200-BP-5 and 200-PO-1 — was issued jointly by […]

A legal dispute over the Department of Energy’s issuance of a landlord services contract for the Paducah Site in Kentucky to Swift & Staley, is apparently still percolating at the Small Business Administration’s Office of Hearings & Appeals. Late last month, Judge Thompson Dietz of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims granted another party in […]

A decommissioned U.K. cargo vessel that once helped ship weapon-usable plutonium to the U.S. from Sweden has been completely recycled, ship operator Nuclear Transport Solutions announced this week. The INF3-class Oceanic Pintail, a 3,865 metric-ton (4,260 U.S. tons) vessel, was decommissioned in Scotland by Dales Marine Services of Leith near Edinburgh, Scotland, said Nuclear Transport […]

The parties involved in a federal court case aimed at blocking a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel could still be litigating through next summer, new court filings show. If a judge in the D.C. circuit court of appeals approves a draft schedule filed by the parties Tuesday, final briefings in the suit […]

An anti-nuclear watchdog group pressed Pennsylvania’s utility regulator Tuesday for more information about its ongoing investigation into water use at the shuttered Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station. Docketed records, communications and work notes are among the trove of documents Three Mile Island Alert wants from the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission’s (PUC) investigation into water […]

The Department of Energy’s prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has completed removal of 157,000 tons of salt mined from Panel 8, clearing the way for emplacement of transuranic waste there once Panel 7 is full in April 2022, the agency announced Tuesday. While electric power, phones and equipment such […]

Funeral services were scheduled for Nov. 9 at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., for a submarine officer who had a second career in the civilian nuclear world as a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board staffer for most of the last decade. Captain John Pasko (Ret.) died Sept. 7, according to a memorial post published […]

A bipartisan group of four senators reintroduced a bill to protect whistleblowers at the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from retaliation, according to a recent press release. Before the Senate adjourned last week, Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Ron Wyden (D-Wash.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) announced that they filed their […]

Members of the public have a month to comment on the proposed sale of a mothballed Wisconsin nuclear power plant to a decommissioning company, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday. NRC is accepting input on the proposed license transfer of Kewaunee Power Station to an EnergySolutions subsidiary from Dominion Energy until Nov. 12, the agency […]

With a Friday deadline looming, the Fluor-led operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is making plans to fire employees who have refused COVID-19 vaccinations while also issuing a final plea for the holdouts to get inoculated. In a Monday staff email, viewed by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing and […]

Although the buildings have been torn down, there is still plenty of remediation work left for the Department of Energy in coming years at its portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a spokesman for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control said. “The soil cleanup is expected to finish around 2034,” Russ Edmondson, a […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: October 12 – The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant plans a town hall presentation online starting at 5 p.m. Mountain Time on regulatory issues surrounding Panel 8 for underground disposal. 12 –The Department of […]

A government employee and his wife were arrested over the weekend for attempting this summer to sell classified information about the Virginia-class attack submarine’s nuclear reactor to a foreign government, according to an unsealed criminal complaint dated Friday. Jonathan Toebbe and his wife, Diana Toebbe, were in federal custody by Saturday, according to a Monday […]

As of Sept. 30, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has recorded more than 6,900 cases of COVID-19 and dozens of fatalities within the weapons complex since the pandemic began, according to data provided Friday by a spokesperson. The number of deaths is now 41 among federal and contractor employees in the DOE […]

An article in the Oct. 6 edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“DOE Completes Startup Testing for Liquid Disposal at Waste Treatment Plant”] should have said that by December, Hanford crews will gradually start heating up the first melter at the Low Activity Waste Facility to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit.

A lawsuit challenging a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel should see some new action this week, court documents show. Tuesday is the deadline for a coalition of anti-nuclear groups to file new motions in their suit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed spent fuel storage site in […]

While no details were provided, a Department of Energy spokesperson officially confirmed late Friday Centerra will continue at least in the short term as security contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. “Yes, they’ll be extended,” the spokesperson said. The federal agency is not working today in observance of the […]

The article “Over Half of NRC Employees Vaccinated, NRC Says” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, October 05, 2021) should have said that a full return to work at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is scheduled for Nov. 7 and that some staff are already working in-person.

The Department of Energy should award a new long-term contract for cleanup of the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee by the end of the year, agency officials told an annual conference sponsored by the Energy Technology and Environmental Business Association Wednesday. Angela Watmore, the acting deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and project management for the […]

Nobody was hurt Monday morning when a truck caught fire in the 200 East Area of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, according to a notice posted on the website for the federal property. The fire occurred under the hood of the truck loaded with an empty container from the Site’s Environmental […]

The company decommissioning the Duane Arnold Duane Arnold Energy Center plans to start moving spent fuel from the shuttered plant’s reactor to dry storage this year, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector said Wednesday evening. NextEra should have the fuel on the move “starting in 2021,” Rex Edwards, an inspector working out of NRC’s Region III […]