Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Department of Energy does not have effective processes, procedures, and controls over the workers’ compensation program at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the DOE Office of Inspector General said Thursday. Concerns ranged from inadequate communication with workers filing claims for illnesses and injuries to letters of credit issued without adequate controls to a […]

The August doldrums in Washington weren’t quite as quiet as in past years, and there was plenty of news during the ExchangeMonitor’s annual publication break. As chronicled in the Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, here are a few stories we’ve been following. Hanford Treats Over 2 Billion Gallons of Contaminated Groundwater in FY18 Workers at the Hanford […]

Most work resumed Monday on the Hanford Site’s SX Tank Farm after a stop-work order was lifted. One or more workers called a halt to work Friday in the radioactive waste storage area out of safety concerns that a hole discovered the day before could impair the integrity of a nearby underground tank. However, a […]

The Energy Department’s Office of River Protection expects the workload will increase significantly during the next contract period at the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Office of Environmental Management on July 30 issued a draft request for proposals (RFP) for a potential seven-year, $904 million contract for analytical work, testing, […]

John Stang Perma-Fix expect its GeoMelt radioactive waste treatment system to go into fuller production in late 2018 at its Washington state location, according to President and CEO Mark Duff. Early this year, the Atlanta-based waste management company entered into a contract with Veolia Nuclear Solutions to install its patented vitrification technology in Perma-Fix’s Richland […]

Longtime Energy Department hand Jim Owendoff has left his job as the No. 2 official in the Office of Environmental Management (EM) to become a special adviser on nuclear cleanup issues at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Mark Gilbertson, associate principal deputy assistant secretary for EM’s Office of Regulatory and Policy Affairs, will […]

The Department of Energy this week released a draft solicitation for a Savannah River Site management and operations contract that could be worth nearly $15 billion over 10 years, including construction of new tritium facilities to power up U.S. nuclear weapons. Interested parties can meet DOE officials on site for two days of one-on-one meetings and […]

Restructuring the independent federal agency charged with health and safety oversight at Department of Energy nuclear-weapon and cleanup sites will not involve layoffs, according to the head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. “We are not going to have to involuntarily separate anyone,” acting DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton said in an Aug. 16 telephone […]

Tennessee-based RSI EnTech said Monday it would not follow a competitor’s lead in protesting the Energy Department’s recent $137 million consolidated contract award for technical support services at the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office complex. “Yes, we received a debrief [on the contract award]; no, we did not/are not filing a protest,” RSI EnTech President Paul Clay […]

The Energy Department has issued a draft request for proposals (RFP) for a contract potentially worth up to $904 million over seven years for analysis services at the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The current contract, held by Veolia subsidiary Wastren Advantage, ends on Sept. 20, 2020, DOE said in a […]

Hiring has begun for the workers at the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant’s Analytical Laboratory who will support the plant’s commissioning prior to the start of operations by a 2023 federal court deadline. A 3,300-square-foot laboratory has been established at Columbia Basin College (CBC) near Hanford in Pasco, Wash., to help prepare for work at […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., expects in 2019 to receive the first shipments from 6 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium being downblended at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. That was the word Thursday from DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader during a “WIPP Town Hall” public […]

AVANTech Inc. of Columbia, S.C., has acquired Mid Columbia Engineering Inc. (MCE), a Richland, Wash., firm that has done work at the nearby Hanford Site. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. AVANTech plans to continue to expand the Richland manufacturing and service facility and use it to help deliver products and services to […]

With one day left to spare, the U.S. Energy Department announced Monday that it would extend by one year the contract for the Savannah River Site’s management and operations provider. The initial contract for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), a 10-year deal worth $9.5 billion, was set to expire on July 31. In its press […]

A recent leak of radioactive waste from a storage tank at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina reinforces the need to properly fund the facility’s liquid waste program, local stakeholders said this week. Liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) noticed the leak from Tank 15 in early June and […]

The Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed the final version of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, clearing the way for President Donald Trump to sign a bill that would tighten congressional oversight of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The $717 billion bill sailed through on an 87-10 vote, less than […]

Fluor Chairman and CEO David Seaton said Thursday the company remains in pursuit of a multibillion-dollar liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina that the Department of Energy is due to award again in a few weeks. Seaton offered his take, without elaboration, during Fluor’s quarterly earnings call with Wall Street […]

The White House on Tuesday nominated a former Capitol Hill staffer as general counsel for the Department of Energy. William Cooper is currently senior counsel and director in the Washington, D.C. branch of McConnell Valdés, a corporate law firm based in Puerto Rico. His prior positions as a congressional staffer include staff director for the […]

Andrew Wheeler, acting head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, on Monday signed a record of decision laying out the final cleanup plan for the 100 D and H Areas along the horn of the Columbia River at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Cleanup began under interim decisions in the mid-1990s on 7.8 square […]

The ExchangeMonitor is taking its August recess, and Weapons Complex Monitor will not be published during the second and third weeks of the month. We’ll still be in the office, so keep the news tips coming, and look for the next weekly newsletter in your inbox on Friday, Aug. 24.

A New Mexico company on July 20 filed a formal protest against the Department of Energy’s recent award of a contract worth up to $137 million over five years for technical support services at the office that oversees cleanup of the Paducah Site in Kentucky and Portsmouth Site in Ohio. In its docket notice for […]

Total penalties assessed by Idaho against the Energy Department for failing to start treating sodium-bearing waste at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) hit $4.16 million earlier this month, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. The Idaho DEQ on June 20 approved DOE’s latest round of proposed supplemental environmental projects, which will allow DOE […]

The Energy Department wants a proposed change for counting the volume of transuranic waste disposed of in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico to be retroactive to 1999. That is among the primary points included in a July 12 letter from Todd Shrader, manager of DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office, and Bruce Covert, president […]

Bechtel National (BNI) has been placed under new federal restrictions on issuing subcontracts and making large purchases following a routine audit of its purchasing systems by the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency. The business is the U.S. government-focused branch of global engineering and project management provider Bechtel. Among its current work is construction of the […]

The congressional conference version of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes the Senate spending allowance for defense environmental cleanup: the single-largest bloc of annual funding at the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The House of Representatives voted 359-54 Thursday in favor of the compromise bill report released earlier in the week, […]

The Department of Energy is making plans for the next phase of a demonstration project for commercial grouting and disposal of some of the low-activity radioactive waste held in underground storage tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Phase 2 of the test bed initiative, grouting 2,000 gallons of waste, could be completed by […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is scheduled to meet Aug. 28 to discuss a Department of Energy order that could limit the independent nuclear health-and-safety watchdog’s ability to police the U.S. nuclear-weapons complex. The board has suggested that senior DOE officials, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, […]

The Department of Energy is preparing to restart demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, after most work was halted after a spread of radioactive contamination in December. A contractor-led, DOE-overseen management assessment evaluating preparations to resume work is expected to start Aug. 13. It could clear the way […]