Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/16/2015 The operator of the Bridgeton Landfill agreed last week, after court negotiations with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR), to relocate two Temperature Monitoring Probes (TMP) closer to the radioactively contaminated portion of the West Lake Landfill. The state had requested the relocation late last month following concerns […]

Medical Imaging Firm Offers $1 Million Investment Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/16/2015 Perma-Fix Environmental Services’ medical isotope subsidiary, Perma-Fix Medical, entered into a strategic partnership and secured a $1 million investment from Digirad Corporation to help the subsidiary develop and commercialize its technetium-99m production technology, Perma-Fix announced this week. With Canada set to stop […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/16/2015 Kurion received a contract to develop a robotic arm to repair reactor primary containment leaks at the Fukushima Daii-chi Nuclear Power Plant, the company said this week. The contract from IHI Corporation calls for Kurion to produce its robotic system, entitled the ‘Fukushima Repair Manipulator,’ for a targeted deployment […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission directed its Staff last week to begin a rulemaking to better address the NRC’s role in regulating decommissioning power plants, with an end date tentatively set for 2019. Currently, the NRC does not have regulations that reflect the decreased security and safety threat posed by […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 Stephen Burns took over last week as the new Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Burns replaces Allison Macfarlane, who left the NRC to take a position at George Washington University. Burns was confirmed by the Senate this fall to serve as an NRC Commissioner, and among his previous […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 John Kotek, the former staff director for the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, has emerged as the top candidate to serve as the next Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, RW Monitor has learned. Kotek would fill the No.2 position […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 The Army Corps of Engineers is projecting a significant increase in the cost to complete the cleanup of the Shallow Land Disposal Area (SLDA) site in Armstrong County, Pa., according to information released this week. The Corps’ new estimate puts the final cost of cleaning up the SLDA site […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 Bechtel and Westinghouse Electric Company have entered into a multi-year partnership agreement to provide decontamination and decommissioning services for commercial nuclear power plants. The partnership will cover a range of services, including pre-shutdown planning, licensing, project development and management, dismantling, demolition, waste handling, and site closeout—with a central focus […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 The Army Corps of Engineers’ Kansas City District awarded to 10 companies this week an unrestricted Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Multiple Award Task Order Contract for remediation services. The contract, which has a ceiling of $185 million, will support work across Corps projects such as remediation work for the […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 New York Senator Charles Schumer (D) this week called on the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) to release the remediation plan for the Tonawanda Landfill while promising to push for more federal funding for the cleanup program. The Corps has said it would […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2014 The Vermont Yankee Power Station in Vernon, Vt. officially ceased operations last week, ending the reactor’s 42-year operation life. Entergy, the plant operator, announced last year that it would be entering premature shutdown of the Vermont Yankee station at the end of 2014, despite receiving a 20-year license extension […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission has pushed back the date it plans to propose most of the rule changes it is currently revising, Commission Rules Committee Chair Linda Morris said at a public meeting this week. The Commission had hoped to have the rule changes ready for […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 A Texas state court of appeals denied last week a motion for re-hearing in the Sierra Club’s challenge against the byproduct disposal permit issued to Waste Control Specialists by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The same court last year denied the Sierra Club’s appeal concerning TCEQ’s denial to […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/9/2015 Entergy filed a new lawsuit in the Federal Court of Claims last week against the Department of Energy seeking damages for the failure to remove the spent nuclear fuel at its Pilgrim Nuclear Station. The litigation is the second suit Entergy has filed seeking repayment for costs incurred to […]

RW Monitor 1/9/2015 IN CONGRESS Sen. Barbra Boxer (D-Calif.) announced this week that she will not seek re-election in 2016. In a video posted by Boxer to her PAC for a Change website, she gave little explanation for her decision, save for a desire to “come home to this state that I love so much, […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 12/19/2014 The Canadian Nuclear Laboratories Limited, formerly known as Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, successfully entered into a collective agreement this week with close to 900 United Steelworkers members. The agreement enables the continued work through 2016 and 2017 of 884 union members across CNL sites, including Chalk River. The […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 12/19/2014 The City of Laguna Beach, located near the San Onofre Nuclear generating Station (SONGS), passed a resolution this week that called on the Department of Energy to move forward ‘expeditiously’ with the removal of spent fuel. The Laguna Beach resolution calls on DOE to remove the fuel as quickly […]

The following interview with Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane was conducted by RadWaste Monitor reporter Jeremy L. Dillon this week at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md. Macfarlane plans to leave her position on the Commission at the end of this year. RW Monitor 12/19/2014                     […]

Please note: the offices of EXCHANGEMONITOR PUBLICATIONS will be closed from Dec. 24 through Jan. 4. The Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will be published Dec. 22-23, and the next full issue of RadWaste Monitor will be on your desk Jan. 9. We will issue bulletins should any major news break in the interim. Happy holidays!

Land Ownership and Water Rights Still Needed Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 12/19/2014 The Yucca Mountain license application meets most administrative and programmatic requirements, except land ownership and water rights, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Safety Evaluation Report Volume Four released this week. The conclusions only bolstered  both pro-Yucca support that gained momentum in […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 12/19/2014 As the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSHA) continues the investigation into the worker death at the EnergySolutions Erwin, Tenn. facility, the company began restarting initial operations this month, EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said this week. Following the accident in October, EnergySolutions suspended operations so it could conduct […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 12/19/2014 North Dakota introduced proposed rule changes late last week that would allow for more disposal of Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (TENORM) in the state’s landfills. The proposed rule change would increase the radiation level allowed per year from 5 picocuries per gram of material to 50 picocuries, […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 12/19/2014 Eleven countries, including the United States and Canada, joined this week a Joint Declaration on the Security of Supply of Medical Radioisotopes to ensure the security and reliability of molybdenum-99. With Canada set to stop government spending in 2016 on the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor, one of the […]

The Texas Commission of Environmental Quality issued a set of proposed rules late last week in the Texas Register that would require out-of-state waste to go through volume reduction techniques before entering Waste Control Specialists. In the state legislature’s last session, lawmakers passed a bill on radioactive substances that included some guidelines for protecting the […]

ExchangeMonitor Founder and Publisher Edward Helminski Dies at 72 WC Monitor 12/12/2014 Edward Lawrence Helminski, the founder, publisher and president of ExchangeMonitor publications, died peacefully in his home in Washington, D.C, on Dec. 5. He was 72.  Helminski’s diverse career spanned from academia to energy policy work with states and the White House to newsletter […]

There is a legendary story in the lore of ExchangeMonitor. In the early 1980s, as Ed was just a few years in to building what would become ExchangeMonitor Publications & Forums, one of Ed’s first reporters was just about at his wits end after only a few months on the job. After watching his story […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 12/12/2014 With continued gridlock between the House and Senate on long-term plans for high-level waste, no funding for either Yucca Mountain or a pilot interim storage plant made it into the compromise version of the Fiscal Year 2015 Appropriations omnibus bill released this week. The House and Senate have taken […]