Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The U.S. Department of Energy partially or fully approved 15 of the 20 recommendations submitted by the Savannah River Site’s Citizens Advisory Board (CAB), from January 2016 through December 2017. Of the five other recommendations, three are still pending and the other two were denied in full. The high approval rating signals to board members […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management on Thursday issued its request for proposals for the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and scheduled a pre-proposal site tour for April 10. The announcement had been expected after DOE issued the draft RFP in November and said last month it was preparing to […]

PHOENIX, Ariz. — During 2017, its first year of operation following a nearly three-year shutdown, the Energy Department Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico resumed disposing of transuranic waste, tightened its vetting of incoming shipments, and resumed salt mining, officials said this week. The nation’s only underground repository for TRU waste, which is overseen […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed Anne Marie White to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, after Energy Secretary Rick Perry agreed to suspend the agency’s uranium barter program. The commitment by Perry, offered publicly during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, evidently helped persuade Sen. John Barrasso […]

Another new leader has been named for the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) project as recovery continues from a spread of radioactive contamination from demolition in December. John Lehew, president of Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. (CHPRC) from 2008 to 2012, has been named the new demolition manager. Workers at the […]

The Department of Energy has named a new federal project director and assistant manager for the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant as the $17 billion project moves into a new phase. Tom Fletcher, now deputy manager of DOE’s Hanford Richland Operations Office, will move to the DOE Hanford Office of River Protection to take the […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry ducked and dodged in the first congressional hearing of the year about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget, evading questions from the dais about when the agency would provide a congressionally mandated cost estimate that could allow it to cancel a massive plutonium disposal plant under construction at the Savannah […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday expressed his opposition to continuing sales of excess government uranium to help finance cleanup of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, an issue that is holding up confirmation of Anne Marie White to head the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The topic came up in the […]

The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into vitrified glass by the end of 2021, in advance of a legal deadline, the highest-ranking official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant energy secretary for environmental management, […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board is preparing to issue a recommendation on the future of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), sources said this week. The Energy Department advisory board will hear public input on potential future uses for the AMWTP during a conference call on March 28. The […]

Centrus Energy is almost finished with decontamination and decommissioning of its American Centrifuge demonstration project at the Energy Department Portsmouth Site in Ohio, President and CEO Daniel Poneman said Thursday. “All the machines and plant equipment have been removed and are set for disposal, we have a few more limited tasks to wrap up,” Poneman […]

A Department of Energy proposal to fill a Hanford Site radioactive waste storage tunnel with grout will not preclude future cleanup options for the tunnel, according to information presented at a public meeting Wednesday in Richland, Wash. The meeting covered DOE’s proposed changes to the Hanford Dangerous Waste Permit issued by the state of Washington, […]

Mid-America Conversion Services earned just under $1.1 million in award fees for eight months of work on depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to the contractor’s recently released performance scorecard. That was just under half of the $2.3 million available for fiscal […]

By John Stang Complications in waste treatment operations and closure costs of a facility in Tennessee trimmed Perma-Fix Environmental Services’ revenue and produced an operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2017. However, executives said the company’s outlook is strong in 2018 as it vies for new government and commercial contracts and looks toward a potential […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy’s final budget for the 2018 fiscal year that began last October might be published Monday, the agency’s top House appropriator told reporters Thursday. After a hearing on the 2019 budget with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said congressional leaders “hope to put it [the bill] online” […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is promising by to soon spell out steps for “final” revisions to bid proposals for the liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At least one industry source, however, doubts DOE will fully reconsider its original contract award from last fall. After […]

Vahid Majidi, a former Pentagon and national-lab hand who most recently worked in industry, is scheduled today to replace the departing Terry Michalske as director of the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. Majidi will be executive vice president at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), which runs the lab and the Savannah River Site’s […]

The aftermath of the February 2014 radiation release that closed the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for almost three years is the common thread between two recent developments at the nation’s only underground repository for transuranic waste. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments through April 19 on whether to […]

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday signed into law a bill that is expected to increase the number of Hanford Site workers’ compensation claims approved by the state Department of Labor and Industries. The legislation would require the state to presume a wide range of illnesses were caused by working for as little as […]

Following a 14-month outage, liquid waste processing at the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site is expected to restart by the end of the April. The South Carolina facility said in January operations would begin by March. But that milestone has been delayed by a month, Sonya Goines, DOE spokeswoman at Savannah River, said last […]

The 3 gallons of low-activity radioactive waste the Hanford Site in Washington state shipped in October to a nearby Perma-Fix Environmental Services facility have been processed and shipped to the Waste Control Specialists site in Andrews County, Texas. A March 2 article gave an incomplete picture of the status of the waste.

The U.S. Energy Department appears to be reaching out to all the teams that bid on the $4.7 billion contract to manage liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, after the Government Accountability Office last month upheld one protest against the deal, industry sources said this week. Two industry sources said Thursday […]

Due to potential conflicts of interest, the U.S. Energy Department has determined potential bidders for the $4 billion Hanford Mission Essential Service Contract should not be part of five other key contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Energy Department issued a draft request for proposals for the 10-year contract in November, with […]

Management relied too heavily on near real-time continuous air monitors (CAMs) to check for airborne radioactive particles during demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, according to the root cause evaluation for the December spread of radioactive contamination from the project. Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. on Thursday submitted its evaluation […]

Former Waste Control Specialists President and CEO Rod Baltzer has opened a new consulting firm, and is not straying far from his specialty in low-level radioactive waste disposal. “I haven’t Tweeted in a while, but wanted you to know I have started a consulting firm since leaving WCS,” Baltzer said in a March 2 message […]

The U.S. Energy Department said last week it has renewed a cooperative agreement with Vanderbilt University for nuclear cleanup research. The latest iteration is worth $15 million over five years. The Nashville, Tenn., institution is part of the multi-university “Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation III” (CRESP). The program is designed to promote “cost-effective, […]

A hold by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is seemingly the only barrier remaining between Anne Marie White and a vote by the full Senate on her nomination to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. The Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday it on March 1 automatically advanced White’s nomination to head the Energy […]

Faced with local news coverage raising questions about her expense account, and in the middle of a state legislative campaign, Andrea Romero acknowledged Friday her days at the helm of an advocacy group for communities near the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are likely over. “It would be hard for me […]