Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Stoller Newport News Nuclear (SN3) President Nick Lombardo has been tapped to lead the management team for the joint venture recently awarded the $1.39 billion legacy cleanup contract at the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Lombardo will serve as program manager for Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos, which will be responsible […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday voted to support the nomination of Anne Marie White to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. The voice vote clears the way for White’s eventual consideration by the full Senate. One obstacle to White’s confirmation remains Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who during a hearing […]

The Department of Energy plans to open a center to help ill current and former Hanford Site workers or their survivors understand the benefits for which they may qualify. The new center, called the Hanford Worker Engagement Center, is one of the steps DOE is taking after hearing worker complaints about difficulty getting help. The […]

By John Stang A week after announcing that private-equity firm J.F. Lehman had acquired Waste Control Specialists (WCS), the companies are largely closed-mouth about details of the deal. The involved parties – Lehman, WCS, and former owner Valhi Inc. – announced the sale in three separate press releases after market close on Friday, Jan. 26. […]

Longtime member Sean Sullivan was set to leave the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) today after a short and tumultuous run as chairman, during which he suggested eliminating the independent federal agency where he has worked for the last five years. Sullivan announced his impending exit on Jan. 19 in a memo circulated to […]

By Matthew Beinart Defense Daily The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has tapped CenturyLink [CTL] and collab9 to secure its enterprise communication networks with their joint cloud communications service. Under the deal, announced Jan. 31, the two companies will deliver their Unified Communications as a Service (UCaas) platform to start DNFSB’s transition to cloud computing platforms. “CenturyLink is […]

The three responsible parties for cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site in California have asked the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) for two additional months to begin baseline air monitoring. NASA, acting on behalf of Boeing and the Department of Energy, made the request in a Nov. 27 letter to DTSC. The monitoring […]

An advisory board that monitors environmental management issues at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina wants the Department of Energy to reclassify old liquid waste equipment so it can be shipped off-site for permanent disposal. The SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) voted 22-1 Tuesday to request that DOE investigate whether used liquid waste melters and certain […]

A federal lawsuit accusing the management contractor at the Savannah River Site of forcing a worker to retire due to his sleep apnea should be thrown out, according to a recommendation from a U.S. magistrate judge. Judge Thomas Rogers wrote in his Jan. 19 recommendation that Steven Baxley, a former employee of Savannah River Nuclear […]

Having workers use supplied air respirators with lines that snake across the ground rather than heavy air tanks could be an option for certain tasks at the Hanford Site’s radioactive waste storage tank farms, according to tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions. Workers have been testing use of air lines, including at the HAMMER […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management anticipates it will in July issue a draft request for proposals for the Nevada Environmental Services Program at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). That is according to documents posted on a DOE procurement website for industry meetings held Monday and Tuesday in Las Vegas. The Office of […]

AECOM is still awaiting resolution of a $103 million claim filed against the Department of Energy in December 2014 in connection with the changed scope of cleanup at the Separations Process Research Unit in upstate New York. The Los Angeles-based engineering and infrastructure company noted the unresolved claim in its annual report, released on Jan. […]

A former subcontractor for URS-CH2M Oak Ridge in Tennessee was sentenced this week to 366 days in prison and ordered to repay the Internal Revenue Service more than $2.3 million for a scheme to defraud the federal government. The Justice Department said in a Tuesday news release that Joseph Anthony Armes, II, 38, of Petros, […]

New data has raised questions about the efficacy of monitoring for the spread of radioactive contamination during demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Department of Energy on Wednesday released additional results from the analysis of samples collected at DOE and state Department of Health air sampling stations. […]

The Washington state Senate on Thursday voted 35-14 to pass legislation that would ease requirements for ill Hanford Site workers to be approved for state workers’ compensation because of exposure to radiation or toxic chemicals on the job. House Bill 1723, which was first introduced last year by Republican state Rep. Larry Haler, a former […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos said Wednesday it has received notice from the Department of Energy to start the transition into its $1.39 billion contract for cleanup services at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The Stoller Newport News Nuclear-BWX Technologies team, which was named as the contract winner in December over two […]

Two informed industry sources said this week that multinational waste management company Veolia has completed its purchase of Piketon, Ohio-based Wastren Advantage for an undisclosed sum. The sources said the deal closed on Jan. 16 following federal approval of the U.S. Department of Energy’s foreign-owned, control, or influence (FOCI) analysis. News of the pending deal […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 133 shipments of transuranic waste from around the DOE complex during 2017, exceeding its own target since resuming waste emplacement. Last March, during a WIPP Town Hall meeting, DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader publicly identified a target of 128 shipments from April […]

In his farewell memo last week, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chairman Sean Sullivan suggested he lost the confidence of the 120 staff members of the independent safety watchdog he led for a year and wanted to disband. “Our fine staff deserves to be led by an executive the staff believes in,” Sullivan, a board […]

French nuclear fuel cycle company New AREVA officially has a new name as of Tuesday: Orano. Orano is the result of a corporate restructuring AREVA initiated in 2016 that late last year resulted in the sale of the company’s nuclear power business to French utility EDF and other entities. What was left was almost entirely […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. The panel has scheduled a 10 a.m. business meeting to consider four Trump administration nominations, including White and Melissa F. Burnison as assistant secretary of energy for […]

The federal government reopened Tuesday following a three-day shutdown, after Senate Democrats largely dropped their opposition to a stopgap budget bill to keep agencies open through Feb. 8. President Donald Trump signed the bill late Monday evening after it quickly passed through both chambers of Congress. The measure funds the Department of Energy (DOE) at […]

Two top officials at the U.S. Energy Department, including one with responsibility for the Office of Environmental Management (EM), are scheduled to testify Tuesday at a House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearing on DOE management and priorities. Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar and Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes are the only two witnesses listed […]

Setting aside the effect of major spinoffs in 2017, Honeywell, a major player in U.S. nuclear weapons and waste programs, saw sizable sales and earnings boosts last year, while profits rose in the Aerospace segment that houses two of its big Department of Energy contracts. Excluding the effects of the spinoffs, Honeywell’s full-year per-share earnings rose […]

The federal government on Friday was within hours of its first shutdown in years as leaders in Washington scrambled for a last-minute deal on another short-term budget. If that fails, the Department of Energy and its Office of Environmental Management could shortly be forced to furlough most employees and suspend many operations. While the House […]

URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) earned an award fee of $3.28 million of a potential $3.78 million for the second half of fiscal 2017 under its cleanup contract for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, according to a scorecard from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. The document, dated Dec. 5, 2017, graded UCOR […]

Washington Closure Hanford has reached a settlement agreement in principle with the U.S. Department of Justice in a civil lawsuit over subcontracting at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Justice Department has accused the former Hanford cleanup prime contractor of awarding small business subcontracts to front companies. Washington Closure’s contract for environmental […]

A total of $211 million was spent on procurements for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant in fiscal 2017, according to contractor Bechtel National. The plant is being built to turn up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste held in underground tanks into a stable glass form for disposal. “Procurement opportunities have changed as work […]