Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Energy Department needs to address some shortcomings in fire protection at the Solid Waste Management Facility (SWMF) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said recently. There is no comprehensive fire-detection system covering the entirety of the facility, which is staffed only four days per week […]

The government sector was one of the few bright spots early this year in what Fluor Chairman and CEO David Seaton described Thursday as “a disastrous quarter.” “I think we have a good brand in that market and are continuing to bid those projects and being successful,” Seaton said of the company’s business with the […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology has postponed, for now, a second public meeting to seek input on management of waste storage tunnels at the PUREX Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, after the older of the two tunnels was found to be partially collapsed last May. Since then work crews had by […]

The Energy Department and cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho are still in the early stages of the investigation of an April 11 breach of four drums of radioactive waste at the Idaho Site, a state official said this week. “They have made several re-entries and are in the process of collecting samples but it will likely […]

At least one member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said last week he supports giving the Hanford Site in Washington state the ability to pursue lower-cost options for disposal of millions of tons of radioactive waste. Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) said he favors giving the Energy Department extra flexibility at Hanford […]

Parsons has asked Energy Department officials to retract a notice of concern that claimed significant mismanagement in the company’s work to start up the multibillion-dollar Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In an April 6 letter obtained by Weapons Complex Monitor, Parsons SWPF project manager Frank Sheppard said the March […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) became the new contractor in charge of legacy nuclear cleanup at the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico effective Monday morning. The contractor just finished a 90-day transition that has included hiring staff, inspecting cleanup areas and setting up new policy and business procedures, the […]

Contractor Parsons’ “degrading performance” while testing and commissioning the Savannah River Site’s $2 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) could push its start of operations back by several months, according to a notice of concern from the Department of Energy. Rather than the long-anticipated start of operations in December, Parsons’ data suggests SWPF should begin […]

James Canafax, senior vice president and general counsel for BWX Technologies, will leave the company around Aug. 1, according to a recent regulatory filing. The Harvard-schooled lawyer, who got his J.D. in 1996, has been with the company since 2001: nine years before it was spun off from McDermott International, according to his LinkedIn profile. […]

Washington Closure Hanford and the Department of Justice received a final extension Friday to seal a settlement agreement in a civil lawsuit alleging the former Hanford Site contractor knowingly awarded small business subcontracts to front companies. Judge Sal Mendoza Jr. stayed the case in U.S. District Court in Eastern Washington until a June 8 hearing, […]

A House Armed Services subcommittee is seeking briefings every six months from the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM) regarding ongoing problems with toxic vapors at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “Over the past several years, many workers have reported suspicious odors and subsequent health effects,” the HASC strategic forces subcommittee said in […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management plans closer oversight of the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project after workers at the Utah site knowingly falsified certain records. Contractor North Wind Group has taken disciplinary action against the employees involved, a DOE spokesperson said in a Wednesday email, adding that more business ethics […]

The deadline has passed for revised proposals from the three teams that bid on the contract for liquid waste management services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to industry sources. The Energy Department requested the updated bids after one of the losing teams successfully protested the October 2017 award […]

The Department of Energy issued a preliminary notice of violation to Hanford Site contractor Bechtel National on Wednesday for a 2016 worker injury at the Waste Treatment Plant construction site. The incident occurred on Nov. 4, 2016, while a piping system for cooling water for the plant was being vented and filled in preparation for […]

Quality assurance problems continue to afflict the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) being built at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Tuesday. Some of the same quality assurance issues previously identified during a 2012 partial suspension of construction of the facility and a 2014 managed improvement plan […]

After reviewing a reply from the Energy Department this month, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is still not satisfied the agency and contractor Bechtel National are doing enough to verify the safety of structural steel used in construction of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “It’s completely unacceptable that the […]

Four 55-gallon drums of radioactive waste ejected their lids due to excessive pressure on April 11 at the Accelerated Retrieval Project No. 5 (ARP 5) facility, Idaho Site cleanup contractor Flour Idaho confirmed this week. The Energy Department and the contractor had both indicated last week at least one drum, and possibly more, had been […]

The Hanford Site’s occupational medicine services provider earned 91.75 percent of the fee available for fiscal 2017, the Department of Energy announced last week. Kennewick, Wash.-based HPM Corp., a small, woman-owned business founded in 2001, earned $311,950 of the available $340,000. The contractor’s performance was rated about the same as in fiscal 2016. Then it […]

The Energy Department could store transuranic waste up to 10 years at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup site in Schenectady County, N.Y., under a hazardous waste permit it has requested from the state. In early April, DOE submitted the application to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which expects to issue the draft […]

About two months after he left the federal ranks, the former top Department of Energy official at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., joined Atkins in a new role created for him. Jack Craig, who in February retired as manager of DOE’s Savannah River Site office after three years in that role and over […]

Following a five-month pause, plutonium downblending resumed in mid-March at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The mission involves dilution of 6 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable, non-pit plutonium, and not the 34 metric tons of material intended to be processed by Savannah River’s MOX program. Operations began in September 2016, […]

The Department of Energy said Thursday it plans in 15 to 45 days to release a draft request for proposals for the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state. A presolicitation conference, site tour, and one-on-one sessions are tentatively scheduled for late May or June, DOE said as it released a […]

The Energy Department’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, Nuclear Waste Partnership, is likely to award a contract for construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System in May. That should be followed shortly afterward by a groundbreaking, with project completion expected in 2021, DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager […]

Declining profit margins, in some cases just 2 to 4 percent, are a major reason for the wave of mergers and acquisitions by companies that do business in the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup sector, a senior executive with one contractor said last week. Contractors can expect to receive 5 to 7 percent if everything […]

A “bulging drum” of non-radiological waste resulted in a partial evacuation of the Sigma Complex at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on Monday. The Los Alamos Fire Department responded to the Sigma facility, on the main LANL campus, at about 2:30 p.m. Monday, a lab spokesperson said by email. The plastic drum […]

The Energy Communities Alliance got some good news last month when the omnibus budget for fiscal 2018 kept in place existing Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) agreements, ECA Director of Nuclear Energy Programs Kara Colton said Monday. The budget does call for a report on how the Energy Department formulates PILT payments to communities […]

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency plans to hold the U.S. Energy Department to its promise to dig up and consolidate contamination plumes and waste landfills at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. That is according to state EPA Director Craig Butler, in an April 6 letter to James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE’s Office […]

New York state should in early 2019 issue a draft permit for interim storage of transuranic waste at the U.S. Energy Department’s Separations Process Research Unit, a state official said. The state Department of Environmental Conservation will issue the initial document for a 45-day public comment period, spokesman Rick Georgeson said by email. The department […]