Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Responders at the Nevada National Security Site have completely contained the wildfires that broke out there last week in the site’s western region at Area 16, Area 29 and Area 30, the site said Tuesday. The total estimated burn area was about 275 acres, according to a press release from site management and operations contractor, […]

As part of President Joe Biden’s executive order to review certain policy issued by the Donald Trump White House, the Environmental Protection Agency is taking another look at its December 2020 approval of plans for a new landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, the agency said in a letter last […]

Daytime high temperatures around the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state should exceed 100 degrees only a couple of days this week, although a fire watch is in effect, according to a National Weather Service forecast. The forecast around Richland, Wash., no longer includes the excessive heat advisory, as daytime highs will not […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has delayed the final environmental review for Holtect’s proposed interim spent fuel storage site in Lea County, N.M., to November from July, the agency said Friday. In a letter dated Friday, the commission also said that a separate safety review for the proposed site will also be delayed, to January from […]

The Joe Biden administration plans to nominate Sandia National Laboratories alum and State Department veteran Mallory Stewart to be assistant secretary for arms control, verification and compliance, the post responsible for ensuring the last remaining nuclear arms treaty is functioning as intended. The White House announced its intent to nominate Stewart just before the U.S. […]

A nuclear watchdog aiming to halt the sale and decommissioning of the power plant at the epicenter of one of the nation’s worst nuclear disasters is again asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reconsider its challenge, according to a new motion filed with the agency last week. NRC erred when it tossed Three Mile Island […]

Bidders vying for a potential five-year $100-million contract for moving containers of transuranic material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico should inform the Department of Energy about all their recent vehicle accidents, even those where a truck hits a deer. That is one of the takeaways from the questions and answers published […]

New Mexico is very unhappy about the possibility of a commercial interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel within its borders, a cadre of officials told the Secretary of Energy last week. The Land of Enchantment “has not and will not consent” to the proposed Holtec International interim storage site in Lea County, N.M., said […]

A federal magistrate judge set an Aug. 4 discovery hearing in a lawsuit about alleged radioactive contamination by current and former contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio’s Thursday action will help determine what documentation Ursula McGlone and other plaintiffs living within seven miles of […]

Terry Wallace retired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory last week after a nearly 20-year lab career, which he capped by running the site on an interim basis in 2018, during the transition to non-profit management and operations contractor Triad National Security. Wallace’s last day was June 30, the lab announced in a retrospective published […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has received more than 1,000 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste since the deep underground repository reopened in 2017 after the underground radiation leak of February 2014. More than three weeks ago, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) received its 1,000th shipment since April 2017, […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not published Monday, July 5 in observance of the Independence Day holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on July 6.

In documents released this week, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management expressed reluctance to resume the pre-pandemic practice of in-person meetings on contract procurements, such as the ongoing prime contract solicitation at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Ten pages of questions and answers on the potential 10-year, $3-billion contract for management and operation […]

A Texas minerals company has joined a federal lawsuit, headlined by an antinuclear group, aimed at holding up the licensing process for a proposed interim nuclear waste storage facility at the Western edge of the Lone Star state. Fasken Land and Minerals’s June 25 petition against NRC was combined Tuesday with an existing coalition of […]

SOC, a Day & Zimmermann company, filed a bid protest June 28 over the Department of Energy’s decision to stand by a February award of a security services contract to Securitas-led SRS Critical Infrastructure Security. It is the second challenge filed by a losing bidder with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) over the  $1-billion contract […]

Fire danger at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has escalated from “very high” earlier this week to “extreme” on Wednesday as the region continues to suffer through a heatwave and the threat of power disruptions, according to an advisory from the landlord contractor at the cleanup property. With daytime highs in […]

Another wildfire has started at the Nevada National Security Site, with smoke sighted only a couple weeks after responders contained the 24,000-acre Cherrywood fire that burned for about a month at the test site. In a series of press releases on Wednesday, the site reported “multiple” new fires in the western section of the roughly […]

The United Kingdom was scheduled to renationalize management of its nuclear weapons production complex Thursday after almost 30 years of letting industry hold the reins. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) was to become a wholly-owned arms-length body controlled by the U.K. Ministry of Defence, taking over from the Jacobs-led AWE Management Ltd. team made up […]

Environmentalists on Tuesday sued to stop the National Nuclear Security Administration from building a plutonium pit plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., alleging violation of environmental law. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should have to reopen the environmental record for the planned Savannah River Plutonium Pit Production Facility (SRPPF) and a […]

Bidders for the new prime contract at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., are getting two more weeks, until Aug. 3, to submit their proposals. In a notice published on a procurement website Tuesday the DOE Office of Environmental Management said it plans to extend the submission deadline for the […]

The company seeking a license to build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico joined the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week in requesting that a judge toss the state attorney general’s lawsuit over the proposed site, a court filing shows. New Mexico attorney general Hector Balderas went to the wrong court […]

One of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s four current commissioners sees out her term today, leaving the Joe Biden administration with two seats to fill at the top of the independent regulatory agency. Commissioner Annie Caputo, who was nominated to her three-year term in 2018 under the Donald Trump administration, leaves NRC Wednesday, commission chair Christopher […]

After failing to build a plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site after 20 years of planning and billions spent, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday he has doubts about whether the National Nuclear Security Administration can turn the failed project into a plutonium pit factory.  “I do not trust […]

After two presidential administrations allowed the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board to dwindle to only seven out of a potential 25 members, the panel voted Monday to adopt a policy to avoid such staffing shortages in the future. The Citizens Advisory Board voted during an online meeting carried via Youtube to […]

After holding up the project two years, the Department of Energy will start developing an environmental assessment in July for a 2,000-gallon test of the Test Bed Initiative that involves grouting and out-of-state disposal of low-activity tank waste from the Hanford Site in Washington state. DOE’s site manager for Hanford, Brian Vance, told the Washington […]

The story “NNSA Approves CD-1 Range for Savannah River Pit Factory; $6.9B-$11.1B” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, June 29, 2021] should have said that Jill Hruby, the Joe Biden administration’s nominee for NNSA administrator, disclosed a schedule slip for the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) in congressional testimony on May 27.