Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Westinghouse Electric intends to create a business unit covering services for the full nuclear power life cycle as part of a broader reorganization announced Tuesday. The Plant Solutions business will encompass delivery of new power facilities; government services; and deconstruction, decommissioning, and remediation resources, according to a press release. it will be led by David […]

Randy Manus POWER Heavy loads must often be moved at power plants of all types. Air bearing-based vehicles can make the process safer, faster, and cheaper. Cask relocation at a nuclear waste facility offers one successful example of the process in action. Load moving in the nuclear industry comes with unique challenges, particularly when the […]

The Energy Department has awarded a potential seven-year, $152 million contract for occupational medical services at the Hanford Site in Washington state to incumbent vendor HPM Corp. of Kennewick, Wash. The contract includes a three-year base, followed by a pair of two-year option periods, DOE said in a Monday press release. The release did not […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management announced Monday it would split the previously single Tank Waste Cleanup Contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state into two solicitations in the follow-on procurement. Priority will be given to a contract emphasizing closure of radioactive-waste storage tanks and “feed delivery” to the Waste Treatment Plant that […]

Prior to exiting his job, New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Secretary Butch Tongate authorized the U.S. Energy Department to change the way it counts material volume at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad so vacant spaces between container drums are no longer recorded as waste. The longtime NMED manager was appointed to lead […]

Energy Department Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White enters her first full year on the job with both her leadership team largely in place and a strategy to reinvigorate the agency’s $7 billion-plus nuclear cleanup program. Including White, sworn into office late last March, four of the five top jobs at Environmental Management […]

Fluor Idaho said Thursday it is offering a “targeted voluntary separation program” for up to 50 employees at the Idaho National Laboratory cleanup project. Workers who exercise this option by Jan. 14 would leave the company on Feb. 18. The Department of Energy contractor said personnel at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) “are […]

Los Angeles-based AECOM has promoted longtime manager Ron Hahn to the newly created job of executive vice president of business development for the company’s Management Services group. Hahn, who most recently served as executive vice president for critical infrastructure protection strategies, is now responsible for generating growth in AECOM’s federal government business line, including the […]

Weapons Complex Monitor will not be published on Dec. 28 in observance of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Please look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019.

Contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth (FBP) said Monday it plans a voluntary separation program for up to 75 of its estimated 1,500 employees at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The voluntary separation package is being offered to a mix of union and salaried workers, said Fluor-BWXT spokesman Jack Williams. Workers who exercise this option will […]

A trio of contractors enjoyed significant fees in their latest performance scorecards from the Department of Energy. The AECOM-led URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) earned 96 percent of its potential fee from April 1 through Sept. 30 of this year for its remediation at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. AECOM-led Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) […]

The Energy Department on Tuesday issued its final environmental impact statement (EIS) for tearing down buildings and cleaning up soil and groundwater on its portion of the 2,850-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in Ventura County, Calif. The EIS for Area IV and the Northern Buffer Zone is one of the last steps prior to […]

The Energy Department has chosen agency veteran Laura Wilkerson as deputy manager at the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) in Tennessee. Wilkerson has been at DOE for 25 years and was previously director of OREM’s Planning and Execution Division, which helps coordinate remediation at the East Tennessee Technology Park, the Y-12 National Security […]

The federal government’s nuclear health-and-safety watchdog has raised concerns about whether an exhaust tunnel at the Savannah River Site’s nuclear materials processing facility can withstand the impact of an earthquake. The concern is related to two ongoing issues at the facility that have not yet been remedied, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said […]

Stakeholders now have through Jan. 9 to weigh in on the proposed new 2.2-million-cubic yard-landfill to eventually replace the existing facility at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. An Energy Department spokesman confirmed by email the public comment deadline has been extended from Dec. 10. This marks the second extension — DOE had […]

WASHINGTON — The White House has someone in mind to fill a vacancy on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), the acting head of the independent nuclear-health-and-safety watchdog said in a public meeting here Thursday. Acting Chairman Bruce Hamilton would not identify the potential nominee. The DNFSB has been without a fifth board member since […]

A New Mexico hearing officer has endorsed the Energy Department’s request to revise how transuranic waste “volume” is calculated at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) under the 1992 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act. The Dec. 10 report by state Hearing Officer Max Shepherd is now before New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Secretary Butch Tongate, who […]

Barring a last-minute announcement from the Department of Energy, 2018 will end much like it started: With many major contractors waiting to see who will win a multibillion-dollar, 10-year contract for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The most recent procurement schedule for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, from Nov. […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved leaving problem waste from the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) at the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) disposal facility in Texas for up to two more years, and Texas regulators are expected to follow suit. The head of NRC’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, Marc […]

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on Monday announced he will leave the Senate after 2020. Alexander chairs the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, in which capacity he is the gatekeeper for upper chamber funding of the Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. He has held the gavel there since 2015. The […]

A California Superior Court judge has rejected arguments by the Los Angeles branch of Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups that state regulators could prevent Boeing from tearing down several old structures at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) site. The advocacy groups argued in a 2013 lawsuit that the state allowed demolition of […]

The sitting leaders of the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee plan to remain in place when the next Congress convenes in January. Staffers for both subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) confirmed their bosses’ intentions this week. Alexander has held the post since 2015, taking over from Feinstein […]

The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday sued the state of Washington over a new law that eases state workers’ compensation requirements for claims from employees of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington after a telephone discussion Monday between attorneys with the Justice Department […]

The Savannah River Site expects in 2019 to use a mixture of new and old methods to increase removal of mercury from its liquid waste system. In late 2017, officials at the Department of Energy facility in South Carolina discovered they could raise pH levels in the waste evaporator tank, a part of the site’s […]

The Department of Energy is accepting comments about security at the Hanford Site as it updates the security section of its dangerous waste permit for the Washington state facility. The proposed update in the permit from the Washington state Department of Ecology spells out in detail the security measures in place, including signs, surveillance systems, […]

A hearings officer for the New Mexico Environment Department has recommended the state approve a request by the Department of Energy to change the way underground waste is counted at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The recommendation, issued this week, must now be considered by NMED Secretary Butch Tongate, DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager […]

An economic development executive in eastern Idaho said Wednesday that a number of questions remain about the Energy Department’s decision to close the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Idaho National Laboratory. Dana Kirkham, CEO of the Regional Economic Development for Eastern Idaho, will attend a meeting with DOE officials in a few […]