Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is asking a federal judge to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit filed by a former employee. In a Sept. 14 motion for summary judgment, Savannah River Remediation (SRR) said Adrienne Saulsberry was terminated for legitimate reasons. The contractor said its fact […]

After a pause this summer, the contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., expects during the first week of October to resume salt mining to dig out more disposal space. This will be the first mining in storage Panel 8 since July 22, according to Nuclear Waste Partnership spokesman […]

Despite threats of severe weather that required the Savannah River Site to brace for impact, the facility emerged unscathed after Hurricane Florence slammed into South Carolina last week. The storm, which has been linked to dozens of deaths in several coastal states, had no impact on missions or facilities at the 310-square-mile Department of Energy […]

The Department of Energy and several other parties on Wednesday signed a settlement agree to a 3-year-old federal lawsuit seeking better protection from chemical vapors for workers at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The agreement, if approved by the court, would freeze the case as Hanford tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) […]

Waste Control Specialists (WCS) has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for permission to keep stranded transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico for an additional two years. The Dallas-based company asked the agency for an extension until Dec. 23, 2020, to allow the state of Texas, the Department of Energy, […]

An article in the Sept. 14 Weapons Complex Monitor mischaracterized the nature of the Government Accountability Office’s ruling upholding a contract protest against a liquid waste management contract award at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The GAO ruled the Energy Department failed to evaluate the viability of the winning bidder’s […]

The Energy Department apparently still hasn’t submitted a report to Congress due Feb. 1 on classifying certain defense nuclear waste. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2018, signed last December, said the “Secretary of Energy shall conduct an evaluation of the feasibility, costs, and cost savings of classifying covered defense nuclear waste as […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday released the request for proposals for the Hanford Mission Essentials Services Contract. The award has a projected value of $4 billion to $6 billion over 10 years, including option periods. The work is now performed at the Hanford Site in Washington state by Mission Support Alliance, owned by Leidos […]

Layoffs are expected within a couple months at Fluor Idaho’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), Idaho Falls Mayor Rebecca Casper said last week. The facility workforce at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory “is on its way out the door,” Casper said. This is expected “before the New Year, before the holidays,” she […]

The New Mexico Environment Department has wrapped up the public comment period on an application by the Energy Department to amend the state hazardous waste facility permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad. The state received about 100 pages of comments by Sept. 20, from dozens of individuals and groups, both praising […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) will hold two more public hearings about a controversial Department of Energy order the independent nuclear health-and-safety watchdog said would prevent it from exercising its lawful authority to inspect nuclear weapons sites. Acting DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton mentioned the meetings in a Sept. 17 letter to Energy Secretary Rick […]

The Department of Energy Office of Enforcement has issued a final notice of violation to Bechtel National for a Nov. 4, 2016, industrial accident at the Hanford Site in Washington state. A worker sustained broken vertebrae and cuts to the head when a 12-inch pipe unexpectedly separated at a joint and sprayed a pressurized stream […]

The Energy Department’s Paducah Site in Kentucky lost power for about three hours Saturday. A failed piece of electrical equipment caused one Tennessee Valley Authority power line to fall into other power lines that morning, Scott Brooks, a spokesman for the federal utility, said by email Wednesday. The TVA system provides electricity to the Paducah […]

ICE Service Group on Monday denied patent infringement claims made in a lawsuit from a competitor, instead accusing the company of “brazen industrial espionage.” Clinton, La.-based PacTec, which makes industrial containment bags used at government and commercial radioactive waste cleanup sites, filed its lawsuit in June in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said it will keep only essential safety and security staff on duty if Hurricane Florence threatens the nearby region inland. The essential staff number fluctuates depending on what is needed at the time, but in recent memory it has been roughly 340 members of the […]

More than 40 companies signed up to attend an industry session last month to learn more about a contract for further cleanup of the Central Plateau at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. There were more 90 registered participants representing companies including AECOM, Atkins, AVANTech, Bechtel, BWX Technologies, Fluor, Honeywell, Navarro Research […]

The Energy Department’s cleanup office will soon formally post openings for two leadership jobs, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management Anne Marie White told Weapons Complex Monitor. This week, the Office of Environmental Management also posted an updated organizational chart on its website, which includes a couple of significant additions to the last revision […]

Demolition-related work could restart next week at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, but contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. has been cleared only to resume lower-hazard operations. Most work has been stopped at the highly radioactively contaminated facility since December, when a spread of radioactive material was discovered for the second time in 2017. […]

Scott Anderson has been promoted to president and general manager of the cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state, CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley. Anderson has been the No. 2 executive at the West Valley contractor for three years, serving as senior vice president and general manager. […]

After a suspension of several months, Fluor Idaho is again excavating a tranche of Cold War waste at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory. The Idaho Cleanup Project contractor voluntarily suspended the work in the lab’s Accelerated Retrieval Project 8 space following an April 11 breach of four drums at the Accelerated Retrieval Project 5 […]

The Energy Department could reissue a multibillion-dollar liquid waste management contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina any day now – or it could be weeks away. Two industry sources recently indicated the contract announcement could arrive as soon as today, but a third industry source was more skeptical, saying he had heard […]

President Donald Trump’s signature is the only thing standing between the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office and nearly $7.2 billion in funding for fiscal 2019. That would be the highest spending level for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management since fiscal 2005, when it received nearly $7.3 billion. The House of Representatives on Thursday voted 377-20 […]

Contractor Mission Support Alliance has begun a $7.8 million improvement to the water-system infrastructure in the center of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Workers are installing about 4 miles of 30-inch pipe to connect the separate water grids of the east and west areas of the nuclear cleanup site. Work is […]

The minibus appropriations bill on its way to President Donald Trump’s desk would block the independent federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board from downsizing by about 20 percent, and require the Department of Energy to explain why it has restricted some communications with the federal nuclear safety watchdog. Bill language approved by Congress this week forbids […]

Errors and poor policy have fueled the controversy over reimbursement of expenses at a regional group intended to promote communities around the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. That is the crux of an Aug. 28 analysis by Los Alamos County Manager Harry Burgess, addressing financial irregularities by the Regional Coalition of […]

Members of Congress this week voiced their displeasure about a planned downsizing of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, and with a Department of Energy order that some, including the board itself, fear will lock the federal agency out of much of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. “In light of the many concerns with the […]

HENDERSON, Nev. – Parsons Senior Vice President Frank Sheppard Jr. expressed confidence Thursday the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina will start operation in 2019. “We are going to start up next year,” Sheppard said during a panel presentation on tank waste at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste […]