Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Nuclear Watch New Mexico (NukeWatch) can continue to pursue its lawsuit against the Energy Department and its former Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) contractor for failing to do certain tasks spelled out in a 2005 consent order, but a federal judge won’t throw out a revised 2016 settlement between DOE and the state of New […]

The Department of Energy delayed the release of a draft request for proposals for further cleanup of the Hanford Site’s central plateau until sometime between now and Sept. 30, the agency announced this week. The draft solicitation won’t be issued until after the department discusses the planned procurement in August with prospective vendors. “The Central […]

Having already shifted the Energy Department’s Cold War cleanup office to a different undersecretary, the Donald Trump administration isn’t finished yet in remodeling DOE, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was told Thursday. The administration wants to make the Energy Department more efficient and better able to carry out core missions, including “addressing the […]

A sinkhole discovered last month near the 2H Evaporator at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been fixed, a DOE spokesperson said Friday by email. The sinkhole, about 4 feet long, 3 feet wide, and more than 3 feet deep, was discovered in asphalt on the east side of the evaporator […]

The Energy Department and its prime contractor received 169 shipments of transuranic waste for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico during the first six months of 2018. That averages out to 6.5 shipments per week for the first 26 weeks of the year. By comparison, there were 133 shipments, or […]

To prevent it from collapsing, the Department of Energy wants to start filling a second PUREX plant waste storage tunnel at the Hanford site with concrete-like grout in August — before the end of a scheduled public comment period about the effort. The Washington State Department of Ecology, lead state regulator at Hanford, plans a […]

The Department of Energy is limiting options for future use of Hanford land with the cleanup decisions it is making now, according to a new Columbia Riverkeeper report. The Oregon-based group, which works to protect and restore the water quality of the Columbia River, released “Competing Visions for the Future of Hanford” on Tuesday. DOE […]

The Energy Department and contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth expect soil excavation and installation of necessary infrastructure for a planned on-site radioactive waste disposal cell at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio should be completed in fiscal 2019. Recent progress includes setting up trailers for work crews, installing security fencing along the perimeter of the site, including sedimentation […]

All Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) operations resumed at the end of June, following a two-month pause on all missions considered not essential to maintaining safety.  Lab management initiated the pause due to growing concerns over the facility’s safety culture. The Department of Energy lab in South Carolina has been in management-controlled operations since June […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology has issued an operations permit for the analytical laboratory for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. This permit, issued in the spring, is the state agency’s first operations approval for the plant being built by Bechtel to turn Hanford’s radioactive tank […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management on Tuesday released a request for information and sources sought inquiry for stack dismantlement at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. The Environmental Management office is planning an upcoming solicitation for a contractor to decommission, tear down, and conduct site clearance for the High Flux Beam […]

The Energy Department is seeking Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval for a one-time shipment of 2.5 kilograms of spent nuclear fuel material from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to the Idaho National Laboratory for research purposes. The nuclear regulator said June 26 it had received DOE’s application for approval of a shipment route and […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina would look for ways to accelerate shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico under a proposal being studied by a local advisory board. The Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board is expected to vote on making the recommendation to DOE […]

The House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee voted Thursday to reauthorize the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state and instruct the Government Accountability Office to prepare a report on radioactive waste at the site. The bill passed on a voice vote is an amended version of legislation forwarded June 27 by the […]

Elevated levels of radioactive contamination were found last month on transuranic waste drums awaiting shipment from the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to a recent update from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). “The contamination readings were due to the decay of […]

The parties to the Tri-Party Agreement on environmental remediation of the Hanford Site in Washington state have verified that the challenging cleanup of the 618-10 Burial Ground has been completed. That meets the deadline under the agreement for completion of the project by the end of this fiscal year, according to the Department of Energy. […]

The House and Senate are a step closer to resolving their differences on a three-bill appropriations package that includes the Department of Energy fiscal 2019 budget, after the upper chamber on Wednesday voted to begin final negotiations on the measure. In a procedural move that cleared the way for lawmakers from each chamber to negotiate […]

After Losing Suit, Former Savannah River Employee Must Pay Printing Costs In what should be the final chapter of a federal discrimination lawsuit, a former employee of the Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor has been ordered to pay the company $908.45 for the cost of documents printed documents over the course of the […]

The current 30-month option period for Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s $3.4 billion decontamination and decommissioning contract for the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, is scheduled to expire Sept. 30. While a DOE spokesperson confirmed Tuesday the contract has not been extended beyond Sept. 30, other details were sparse. The Energy Department has not said if […]

Although RSI EnTech did not win a recently announced successor contract for technical support services at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio, company President Paul Clay thinks the 97 percent rating on a new performance scorecard demonstrates the firm’s caliber of work. RSI EnTech’s current $51 million, five-year contract at Portsmouth expires at the […]

The Energy Department’s Office of River Protection could issue a sole-source contract for Rutgers University in New Jersey to study factors connected with vitrifying tank wastes at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Although DOE is not aware of other sources capable of doing the work, interested small businesses meeting certain size standards can submit […]

Three more double-shell tanks at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site contain waste with chemistry that puts them them at heightened risk of corrosion, according to a new report from tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions. The report evaluated the waste chemistry of Hanford’s oldest double-shell tank, AY-102, which developed a leak from its […]

The Savannah River Site is on pace to double-stack 358 canisters of treated radioactive liquid waste in this fiscal year, nearly double the 200 canisters stacked in fiscal 2017. All told, the Department of Energy facility near Aiken, S.C., has to date double-stacked 457 canisters of waste in one of its Glass Waste Storage Buildings […]

A Centerra Group subsidiary contracted to protect the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina took home almost $3 million of an available award fee of $3.16 million, roughly 95 percent, for the six-month period from October 2017 through March 2018. The Energy Department praised Centerra-Savannah River Site for its work providing physical protection […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), the Energy Department’s waste tank farm contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, has awarded a subcontract to AVANTech to design and build a pretreatment facility for tank wastes at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). The tank-side cesium removal demonstration project is meant to remove both cesium […]

EnergySolutions in May signed a $9.45 million contract to complete dismantling and decommissioning of the long-retired Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) facility in Arkansas. This final leg of the remediation includes placing the reactor itself into a special container in October. The reactor is one of the few structures left on the site, according […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board recently voted 7-4 to urge the Energy Department to extend the lifespan of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) by allowing the facility to process radioactive waste from out of state. The letter, posted June 27 on the panel’s website, urges DOE to continue […]

URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), prime cleanup contractor for the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, is tearing down the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Incinerator. The demolition project at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) began June 20 and should be finished this fall, a DOE spokesperson said by email Thursday. When operations began […]