Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

While the Savannah River Site’s multibillion-dollar Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) was at one time projected to be operational this month, the U.S. Department of Energy and contractor Parsons have yet to agree on a new project baseline for the facility. The Energy Department is reviewing the document laying out new cost and schedule milestones […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) is tweaking its approach to the so-called “end states” road map to environmental remediation for the Central Plateau at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The office on Wednesday published a notice of its modification to the end-state model championed by Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne […]

Risk should be a major factor in setting cleanup priorities at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the DOE Environmental Management Advisory Board agreed Tuesday. The advisory board voted, in a public meeting held by conference call, to endorse a subcommittee’s recommendations to Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White. The […]

The Department of Energy withheld a quarter of the potential $461,000 fee for contractor CH2M Hill B&W West Valley (CHBWV), limiting the ceiling to $346,000 for its cleanup work in the latest performance period at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York. The fee was withheld for the contractor’s performance from March 1 through […]

Demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state will not restart this month, as earlier projected. It has been a year since the Department of Energy halted demolition and work to load out unpackaged contaminated debris at the plant, following discovery of a second spread of radioactive particles. At the […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Government Accountability Office (GAO) plans to publish three reports during January and February that will detail challenges facing the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). That was a major takeaway from a Tuesday presentation to a panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine by GAO Director of […]

The United States needs an all-new organization separated from the federal government if it hopes to finally end the decades-long impasse in building a permanent resting place for the nation’s nuclear waste, a panel of experts said Monday. That was one of a long series of recommendations listed in the 126-page “Reset of America’s Nuclear […]

The Energy Department and its contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) have summed up their arguments to the New Mexico state government for a new system of recording underground waste disposal volume. Together with AECOM-led Nuclear Waste Partnership, DOE filed its closing statement with the New Mexico Environment Department on Nov. 28, following […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor wants a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that claims the company is responsible for injuries an employee suffered while working on a trailer. In the Nov. 29 response to a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for South Carolina, lawyers for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) wrote that […]

Fluor Idaho has presented Energy Department officials with its corrective action plan for preventing another radioactive-waste drum breach at an Idaho National Laboratory facility. Details of the cleanup contractor’s approach have not been made public. Energy Department officials in Idaho are expected to finish their adequacy review of the plan by Dec. 21. At dates […]

The Energy Department is giving interested parties more time to weigh in on the proposed new interpretation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). The public comment deadline has been pushed back from Dec. 10 to Jan. 9, according to a DOE notice Tuesday in the Federal Register. Comments can be emailed to HLWnotice@em.doe.gov. After the department […]

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is taking comments this month on the Energy Department’s annual update to its cleanup plans for the Idaho National Laboratory complex. The comment deadline on DOE’s draft 2019 version of its Site Treatment Plan for the 890-square-mile national laboratory expires at 5 p.m. local time on Dec. 28, […]

A joint venture, APTIM-North Wind Construction, has won a $92 million contract from the Energy Department to build the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the four-year award in a Tuesday press release. The agency received two proposals for […]

Turnover in key committees in the upcoming Congress might not have a major impact on the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). When Democrats assume leadership in the House of Representatives next month, the primary question involves not the incoming chairs of each panel, but how much they might be swayed by likely House […]

The Energy Department and its cleanup contractor for the Idaho National Laboratory confirmed Friday the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) will close in 2019 once it has finished its work. “The Department of Energy analyzed the feasibility of extending the AMWTP mission to treat waste from other DOE sites, and concluded it would not […]

Kentucky-based Swift & Staley has won an $88 million, 22-month contract extension to continue providing infrastructure support services at the Energy Department’s Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky. The Energy Department announced the contract extension Nov. 29, one day before the initial three-year agreement was scheduled to expire. The new deal keeps the contractor on […]

Two workers at Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state were checked for radioactive contamination after they were sprayed with water when a hose connection failed in the Effluent Treatment Facility Wednesday evening. No radioactive contamination was found on the workers, but they were in a posted radioactive contamination area of the facility. Low […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) says it has deployed a system at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico that can “detect, identify, track and intercept unsanctioned and suspicious drones.” The Department of Energy agency announced the news in a press release Nov. 19, shortly before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Los Alamos’ new counter-unmanned aircraft […]

The Department of Energy should consider performing a lengthy environmental review of its plan to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium by burying the material deep underground, a congressionally chartered panel said Friday. The department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) might find the disposal plan easier to manage if it produces […]

The Department of Energy has awarded four indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts for technical support services at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The agency’s Office of River Protection at Hanford issued the awards on Nov. 20 to Independent Strategic Management Solutions Inc., of Richland, Wash.; Street Legal, of Oak Ridge, Tenn.; JFA-RC Technical […]

The Department of Energy should increase use of solar power at the Savannah River Site as it addresses aging infrastructure issues, the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) said Tuesday. The recommendation was forwarded to DOE headquarters on a 17-0 board vote. It emphasizes the 310-square-mile South Carolina facility’s suitability for solar power: plenty of cleared land on which solar panels could […]

U.S. Energy Department veteran Mark Gilbertson has officially been named principal deputy assistant secretary (PDAS) for the agency’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). The move was announced in a Nov. 20 email to Energy Department officials from Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management Anne Marie White. “Mark has excellent skills, temperament, and knowledge that […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – While the Energy Department’s top nuclear cleanup manager said Wednesday her office will not use a new agency order to thwart oversight by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), members of the panel remained apprehensive. Order 140.1, issued in May, will not change the relationship between DOE’s Office of Environmental Management […]

The Energy Department expects to soon issue a request for proposals for paramilitary security services at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The notice of the upcoming solicitation was posted Tuesday on the Federal Business Opportunities website. The RFP is due to go out within 15 to 60 days, which translates to the […]

The Energy Department could reissue the liquid waste management contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina within hours, according to the most recent schedule for major procurements at its Office of Environmental Management. The DOE nuclear cleanup office posted the latest timeline on Nov. 19, and said the waste contract could be awarded […]

Critical Applications Alliance (CAA), a venture comprised of two Houston companies, has won a $135 million contract to build a new permanent ventilation system at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. The award to the team of Christensen Building Group and Kilgore Industries was announced Nov. 19 by the Energy […]

While the Department of Energy has spent $164 billion since 1989 to remediate Cold War-related nuclear and hazardous waste, its environmental liability has grown, according to the agency’s Office of Inspector General. The department’s environmental liability has more than doubled from a low of $176 billion in fiscal 1997 to $384 billion in fiscal 2017, […]

Weapons Complex Monitor took a break last week for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, but out affiliate publication, Weapons Complex Morning Briefing did not. Here’s a recap of some of the nuclear security enterprise news covered last week. Work Resumes at WIPP After Rock Fall Work resumed underground before Thanksgiving at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation […]