Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Gov. Jay Inslee (D) has picked a state lawyer to lead the Washington Department of Ecology. Laura Watson succeeds Maia Bellon, who announced her retirement on Dec. 2 after leading the state agency since 2013. The Department of Ecology, through its Nuclear Waste Program, regulates the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, as well as […]

A veteran of 28 years in the commercial nuclear power industry is the new acting manager for the U.S. Department of Energy office that oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. Greg Sosson was apparently appointed to the temporary detail earlier this month, according to the Carlsbad Field Office website. Sosson joined […]

The U.S. Navy on Dec. 16 awarded General Dynamics Mission Systems a $300 million contract for fiscal years 2020-2023 for U.S. and U.K. Trident II (D-5) support work. This specifically covers Trident II fleet ballistic missiles submarine fire control system, guided missile submarine attack weapon control system, and support equipment rework facility support. Most of […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) expects to complete decommissioning of a long-retired nuclear power plant at Fort Belvoir, Va., in 2025, after which the property would be available for unrestricted use. The five-year schedule would cover the full scope of decommissioning the SM-1 reactor and associated infrastructure: site preparation, material removal, disassembly, cleanup, […]

The U.S. Energy Department anticipates by early February issuing a draft request for proposals (RFP) for waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The DOE Office of Environmental Management said in a Dec. 23 procurement notice the draft solicitation for what it now calls the Savannah River Site Integrated Mission Completion Contract […]

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) has scheduled a Jan. 9 public meeting to discuss a consent order signed with the U.S. Energy Department in 2016 that updated remediation plans for the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. MT at the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos campus on University Drive, NMED […]

Waste Control Specialists (WCS) this month received approval from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to provide long-term storage of elemental mercury at its Andrews County waste facility for the U.S. Department of Energy. The Energy Department said in a Dec. 27 press release that the Texas regulators approved a modification to the Dallas-based company’s […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday denied a bid protest over a five-year, $137 million contract issued to a Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve) affiliate to provide technical support to the U.S. Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO). A rival bidder, Strategic Management Solutions Inc. (SMSI), filed its initial protest on Sept. 9, followed by […]

The U.S. Government Accountability Office wants the Department of Energy to fulfill a 2007 pledge to manage three former uranium enrichment plants in an integrated manner. The DOE Office of Environmental Management is supervising cleanup of retired facilities in Piketon, Ohio, Paducah, Ky., and Oak Ridge, Tenn., as three independent sites, which is costly and […]

A group of 11 nuclear security and health experts on Wednesday urged the heads of the U.S. Departments of Energy and Health and Human Services to find that the federal government no longer needs to export weapon-grade uranium for foreign production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). The American Medical Isotopes Production Act (AMIPA), enacted […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not be published during the week of Dec. 23-27, in observance of the Christmas holiday. Look for the next edition in your inbox on Monday, Dec. 30.

The U.S. Department of Energy is considering a stand-alone contract for management of its Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. The DOE Office of Environmental Management on Wednesday issued a request for information/sources sought notice for management and operations of the government lab, which is currently under the full Savannah River Site contract. The […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is revising its plan to implement recommendations the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board made this year about the Pantex nuclear-weapon servicing plant. “The Department of Energy has accepted the need to revise and update our implementation plan,” James McConnell, NNSA associate administrator for safety, infrastructure, and operations, said […]

The U.S. Energy Department debriefings on two major contract awards announced this month at the Hanford Site in Washington state will wait until January, two sources said this week. On Dec. 12, Central Plateau Cleanup Co., comprised of AECOM, Fluor, and Atkins affiliates, won the potential 10-year, $10 billion contract for ongoing remediation of Hanford’s […]

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. — The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) took delivery of three new radiation monitoring aircraft recently and put them on display here Wednesday at one of two home bases for the airborne leg of the agency’s counterterrorism office. The three new King Air 350ER airplanes provided by Textron Aviation of […]

Congress wants the National Nuclear Security Administration to slide about $5.5 million from the maintenance budget for the W80 cruise-missile warhead into a Pentagon study to select a design for a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile, according to a compromise 2020 spending bill that would fund the agency through September. The Donald Trump administration proposed studying […]

The members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday rejected requests for an immediate freeze of agency staff’s approval of the license transfer for the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts. The staff order in August covering the reactor and spent-fuel storage licenses allowed owner Entergy to sell the retired plant to Holtec International […]

The U.S. Senate passed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Tuesday, as the House approved appropriations bills for the federal fiscal year: legislation that, together, would provide year-over-year raises for almost all Department of Energy nuclear cleanup and weapons programs. The NDAA passed on a no-doubt margin of 86-8, with four Democrats and […]

The two offices at the U.S. Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state would enjoy higher funding in a compromise appropriations bill for fiscal 2020, according to supporting material released Tuesday. The energy and water development bill agreed to by the House and Senate as part of a larger appropriations package would fund Hanford’s Richland […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) would receive a roughly a $31 million budget for fiscal 2020, which it would have to use to employ the equivalent of at least 110 full-time staff, if a 2020 appropriations package the House approved Tuesday becomes law.  Explanatory language appended to the bill, which advanced out of […]

Veolia has won a contract to build what it describes as a “water detention” facility at the U.S. Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Veolia Nuclear Solutions-Federal Services said Tuesday that DOE vendor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth has awarded it a subcontract to build a system to contain any runoff from demolition of the X-326 process building […]

The U.S. Energy Department on Tuesday issued its final request for proposals (RFP) for the Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning, and Removal contract, which could be worth up to $3 billion over 10 years. The first of what is expected to be many task orders under the multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract would cover removal for an excess […]

In a pound-the-table brief filed this week, Nevada asked a federal judge to hear oral arguments in an ongoing lawsuit to get some 500 kilograms of weapon-usable plutonium shipped out of the state. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration shipped the material to the Nevada National Security Site in 2018 to comply with […]

The U.S. Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee on Tuesday recommended confirmation of Department of Justice attorney Robert Feitel as the new inspector general for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Feitel would succeed Hubert Bell, who retired last December after more than 22 years as NRC inspector general. The NRC inspector general manages an office, […]

Washington Department of Ecology Deputy Director Polly Zehm is retiring from state service at the end of January, just a month after her boss, agency spokesman Randy Bradbury said Monday. Zehm served more than 22 years with the agency, about eight of them as deputy director, according to an online biography. She sent an internal […]

An Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rejected an advocacy organization’s petition to submit a late argument against licensing a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in West Texas. The Austin-based Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition said it should be allowed to file the late contention based […]