Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 […]

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 […]