Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Department of Energy has paused rollout of a solicitation for a 10-year, $14-billion contract to manage the Savannah River Site for most of the next decade, pending an internal review that could radically reshape the nuclear-weapon mission at the South Carolina facility. The agency announced the move late on Oct. 5 in a post […]

The public has 60 days to weigh in on a proposal to modify the fashion in which the Department of Energy classifies “high-level radioactive waste” (HLW), following publication Wednesday of a formal notice in the Federal Register. The Energy Department announced Oct. 4 it would seek to classify HLW more on its radioactive traits and […]

Fluor on Wednesday said its revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 will be about $4.6 billion, down a bit from the $4.9 billion during the same quarter in 2017. The figures Fluor announced Thursday were preliminary and the regular, full earnings report will be released Nov. 1. Fluor said to expect its third-quarter 2018 […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina sustained minor impacts from Hurricane Michael late Thursday and early Friday, during a 24-hour workforce reduction activated as the storm approached. Effects included minimal damage to some administrative buildings at the 310-square-mile Department of Energy facility near the city of Aiken, along with some loss of power and […]

The Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup officials are optimistic an overhaul of the contracting process will enable some sites undergoing environmental remediation to “leapfrog the current life-cycle baseline, and get us to done-done quicker,” a senior official said Wednesday. The Office of Environmental Management (EM), with a current-year budget exceeding $7 billion, is responsible for remediation […]

The Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) resumed operations Tuesday following a nearly two-month outage for routine maintenance. Meanwhile, the site’s Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU), which treats a different form of liquid waste, will remain offline until mid-October. Both facilities were shut down on Aug. 8 for maintenance, which meant liquid […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management will within a few days formally propose to change the way it interprets the term “high-level radioactive waste” (HLW). A Federal Register notice, expected to be posted next week, will outline DOE’s plan to classify high-level waste more on its radioactive characteristics and less on its source […]

Contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) received more than 96 percent of its fee during the second half of 2017 for liquid waste management at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Of an available $12.44 million for work performed between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2017, SRR earned $12 million, or 96.4 percent […]

The state of Washington and the Department of Energy have jointly asked a federal judge for an extension of two milestones for retrieval of radioactive tank waste set in the court-enforced consent decree governing cleanup of the Hanford Site. Washington state sued the federal agency in 2008, asking a federal judge to set new deadlines […]

Workers at the Hanford Site are preparing to start filling the PUREX Plant’s second waste storage tunnel with concrete-like grout as soon as this week, after the Washington state Department of Ecology on Sept. 28 approved the interim stabilization work to prevent collapse. In May 2017, there was a partial collapse of the older and […]

A $40 million project to refurbish all 119 miles of paved roads at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is on pace for completion by fiscal 2023, with work on the last of three major roads expected to wrap up by 2020. In an update on the project last week, Thomas Johnson, the Department […]

Washington River Protection Solutions has been awarded a contract extension of up to a year for management of the radioactive waste storage tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Department of Energy announced the extension Sept. 28, two days before the expiration of WRPS’ 10-year contract. The contract extension, which will expire Sept. […]

The Energy Department believes the central Bear Creek Valley is the best place within the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) in Tennessee to develop a new 2.2-million-cubic yard waste disposal facility – due in part to its geology and groundwater flow conditions. Because the same valley is home to Oak Ridge’s existing Environmental Management Waste Management […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management expects to award a trio of big contracts, two of them re-awards following protests by losing bidders, by the end of the year. The department hopes this month to reissue both the liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and a consolidated technical […]

The Energy Department has retained Centrus Energy to prepare the K-1600 facility at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee for demolition. The Rockville, Md.-based nuclear fuel supplier has leased the uranium enrichment plant since 2002. Centrus announced Tuesday it has received a $15 million work authorization for decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of the plant, one […]

Another Department of Energy facility is preparing to resume shipping its transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. Shipments of contact-handled waste from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California should begin in 2019, lab spokesman Nolan O’Brien said Tuesday by email. The resumption is based on availability of funding […]

A newly inked deal has paved the way for Veolia Nuclear Solutions to demonstrate its patented GeoMelt technology to process radioactive waste sent from the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Under the agreement, announced Sept. 25, INL management and operations contractor Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA) will ship some drums with small amounts of radioactive contaminated sodium […]

The House of Representatives passed in a voice vote Monday a bill to reauthorize the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state, legislation approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July. The amended version of the bill would hike the site’s funding to $75 million annually starting immediately through fiscal 2028 and […]

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth has picked up its second and last option period as cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The Energy Department announced the contract extension, valued at about $850 million, on Thursday afternoon, three days before the current 30-month extension was set to expire. The company began work on its […]

A federal judge has scheduled a hearing for Oct. 17 to addressing scheduling and other matters in a former employee’s discrimination lawsuit against the liquid waste manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The hope is to expedite progress in the case filed more than two years ago, according to […]

The Department of Energy has denied a local advisory group’s request to make treated liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The request, submitted in July by the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB), asked the Energy Department to recharacterize […]

Bechtel National is bringing on a new project director for the Waste Treatment Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, employees were told on Sept. 21. Brian Reilly, who joined the project last December, will be replaced by Valerie McCain. Reilly has been reassigned to the position of project director for […]

When President Donald Trump signed a multiagency appropriations package Sept. 21, it assured the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management about $7.2 billion in funding for the 2019 fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The DOE-funding “minibus,” approved by Congress earlier this month, provides the largest budget for the department’s nuclear cleanup office since it received […]

President Donald Trump plans to appoint Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) acting Chairman Bruce Hamilton to the top position on a permanent basis, the White House said this week. Hamilton, a Navy veteran who spent decades in the nuclear energy industry, joined the board in August 2015 and was elevated to vice chairman in […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday released a draft request for proposals for the Hanford Site Central Plateau Cleanup Contract that takes a new approach to the scope of work at the cleanup job in Washington state. The agency is asking bidders to indicate what environmental cleanup activities they could complete given 10 years, including […]

Less than two months after stepping aside as the No. 2 official in the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office, James Owendoff is taking a new job within the agency. Starting next week, Owendoff will be DOE-wide chief risk officer, a senior executive position within the office of the Chief Financial Officer John Vonglis. He formally […]

Parsons could end up sacrificing a significant amount of its fee for delays in startup of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a DOE official said Monday. Parsons was expected this week to submit a new cost and schedule update for the facility, SWPF Federal […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., expects to start receiving remote-handled transuranic waste from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois by the end of this year, DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said recently. “We are about to add a new site, Argonne, this fall,” Shrader said Sept. 12 […]