Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 […]

Bechtel has hired a veteran Energy Department and nuclear energy industry manager as chief for nuclear safety and operations within its Engineering division. Chip Lagdon will oversee nuclear safety analyses for Bechtel’s DOE cleanup and nuclear security missions, the company said in a press release last week. Lagdon will also work on safety and licensing […]

A new law easing Washington state workers’ compensation program requirements for claims from employees of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site violates the U.S. Constitution, according to the Department of Justice. The agency plans to file a civil lawsuit against the state near the end of this week to block the law, if a resolution […]

Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Atkins Nuclear Secured Holdings Corp. on Nov. 8 named William Madia to its Board of Directors. In addition to heading his own energy consulting firm, Madia is chairman of the board and vice president for the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University in California. Originally called the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, […]

Weapons Complex Monitor will not be published next week in observance of the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Please look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Nov. 30.

An employee at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has sued its management and operations contractor for more than $75,000, alleging he was severely injured while working on a trailer that had not been safely maintained. The lawsuit, filed Nov. 7 in U.S. District Court for South Carolina, says Henry Bradley […]

A major coal ash cleanup project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina was completed this month, more than a year ahead of schedule and for about $9 million less than the original $74 million estimate. The agency said in a press release Friday that site management contractor Savannah River Nuclear […]

Longtime Department of Energy nuclear cleanup manager Ken Picha will join Strata-G, a Knoxville, Tenn.-based subcontractor, on Dec. 1. Picha, who has most recently been the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s acting associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations, is retiring from federal service at the end of this week, an industry source said […]

The contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico suspended transuranic waste emplacement during the latter part of October while it looked into worker illnesses linked to ventilation. Waste shipments have resumed, Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) spokesman Donavan Mager said by email. Mager did not say how long work had been […]

International infrastructure company AECOM expects to be in the running for perhaps a half-dozen contracts from the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management in the next couple years. AECOM Chief Financial Officer Troy Rudd made the observation Monday during the company’s quarterly earnings call. The company expects to bid on five DOE cleanup contracts in […]

Dade Moeller, a subcontractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, has formed a joint venture with RC Engineering and Construction Management (RCECM), a small woman-owned business. The joint venture between the two Richland, Wash., companies is called ARC Professional Services. It will operate under an All Small Mentor-Protege Program agreement approved […]

The Department of Energy’s waste tank management contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for a construction services subcontractor to support its work. AECOM-led Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), which manages about 56 million gallons of radioactive waste in 177 underground tanks, issued the small business set-aside […]

More than 2,000 people submitted comments and signed petitions urging the Department of Energy to withdraw a proposal to reclassify the remaining radioactive waste in the Hanford Site’s C Tank Farm as low-level waste. The reclassification would be a step toward allowing DOE to fill the 16 tanks in the tank farm with concrete-like grout […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management did not wait until Black Friday to start shopping for ideas on the next round of nuclear cleanup at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Idaho National Laboratory. The office on Wednesday issued separate requests for information (RFI)/sources sought notices for upcoming solicitations at the two sites […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has “underperformed” its mission to protect the public from the hazards posed by defense nuclear weapons sites, and the quality of the small agency’s interactions with the Department of Energy has fallen to “an all-time low,” according to a study published this week. The DNFSB contracted the National Academy […]

Radioactively contaminated areas of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in Ventura County, Calif., were not hit by the Woolsey Fire last week, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) said Monday. “Our staff were able to access the site Saturday morning and assess damage caused by the fire,” DTSC spokesman Russ Edmondson said […]

A comparative analysis of different supplemental treatment methods for low-level radioactive waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site should be included in the results of an ongoing study, according to the second review report on the study by a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine panel. The panel is independently reviewing a study […]

George Rael, a longtime Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official, has joined Longenecker & Associates as a project manager at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico effective this week. Longenecker is a subcontractor to Triad National Security, which on Nov. 1 took over as the NNSA’s management and operations […]

By John Stang Perma-Fix Environmental Services said Wednesday its GeoMelt radioactive waste treatment system is scheduled to complete its testing by Dec. 31 and should begin operating in the first quarter of 2019. “We are making progress with the GeoMelt system,” Perma-Fix President and CEO Mark Duff said during the company’s quarterly earnings conference call. […]

By John Stang Paris-based waste and water management multinational Veolia said Thursday net income rose on a boost in revenue for the first nine months of 2018. “Veolia’s nine-month results are very satisfying. Revenue growth is sustained and solid, and provides operating leverage resulting in growth in net current income of 20 percent as to […]