Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 […]

Concerns are growing over safety violations at the Savannah River Site’s defense facilities, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a recent letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The Jan. 4 letter, signed by DNFSB Chairman Sean Sullivan, said safety issues identified in a Sept. 8, 2017, report from staff at the DOE watchdog […]

About 100 workers at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant are being moved to new offices outside of an expanded control zone around the facility. The move is due to “the overwhelming presence of naturally occurring radon in the PFP trailer village area,” workers were told in a message Wednesday. A spread of radioactive contamination […]

In another step toward normal operations following a pair of February 2014 accidents, the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico resumed long-anticipated salt mining operations on Monday. The Energy Department and WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership had been talking about resumption of mining for months, and a spokesman for the company confirmed […]

Wastren Advantage Inc. (WAI) took home 96.1 percent of the potential award fee for its laboratory analysis and testing contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state for the period from Nov. 21, 2016, to Sept. 20, 2017, according to a recent performance scorecard from the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. Wastren took in […]

The Energy Department could in late February issue its final request for proposals for construction of the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., according to recently released presolicitation documents. The agency expects prospective bidders will have 30 calendar days from the date of the final RFP […]

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) injected a bit of drama into an otherwise routine confirmation hearing Thursday by saying he would not support the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management until the Energy Department agrees to discontinue its “uranium barter” program. Barrasso made his comments during a Senate […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor hired about 550 employees last year in an effort to offset personnel lost due to retirement. Some of the new Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) hires are operators, who assist in the operation of a process or equipment within a nuclear facility at the Department of Energy […]

It is time for Congress to take a look at the Department of Energy’s 17 national laboratories and their contribution to the agency’s mission, according to Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). During a Jan. 9 House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee hearing on DOE modernization, Barton said he plans to draft a bipartisan reauthorization bill for […]

Bechtel National (BNI) has met a contract milestone in construction of the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant worth an incentive fee of $4.275 million, the company and the Department of Energy announced Tuesday. The milestone was for electrical work at the plant’s Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility, with bulk cable electrical installation completed nearly four months […]

The liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and a former employee have received additional time to produce names and contact information for potential witnesses in a discrimination suit against the company. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett on Wednesday granted the joint request submitted five days earlier by plaintiff Adrienne Saulsberry and defendant […]

A key piece of equipment needed for liquid waste disposal at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina has successfully been replaced, but the yearlong outage of liquid waste processing remains in effect, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. Melter 3 is in place and operational as of Dec. 29, when it began pouring treated […]

Several management changes have been made at the Hanford Site tank farms and Waste Treatment Plant project to help meet the Department of Energy’s goal of vitrifying tank waste as soon as 2022. A new general manager has been named for Waste Treatment Completion Co. (WTCC), the subcontractor created for construction, startup, and commissioning of […]