Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Like everyone else, the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management and its contractors have turned the page to 2018, which is shaping up to be another year of transition, according to an informal survey of veteran watchers of the DOE nuclear cleanup complex. Here are a few of the issues to watch: A new leader […]

Brookfield Business Partners, a global asset management firm, announced Thursday it would purchase ailing nuclear energy and infrastructure giant Westinghouse Electric from Toshiba for $4.6 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Westinghouse is looking to focus more on nuclear services, including reactor decommissioning. “The company operates within a complex regulatory and licensing environment […]

The Energy Department is seeking public comment until Jan. 15 on plans to build a 65,280- cubic-foot above-ground concrete storage facility at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., for contact-handled transuranic waste. The comment period opened Dec. 15 on the draft environmental assessment, required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The surface storage […]

Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Craig Butler said last month the state feels confident in the safety of a planned on-site disposal cell for waste from decommissioning of the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant — and that recent research by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency backs up that conclusion. “We have patiently and […]

The Department of Energy plans to close the Hanford Site’s waste storage Tank AY-102, which developed a slow leak from its inner shell into the space between its shells. Tank AY-102 was the first of 28 double-shell tanks built at the Energy Department site in Washington state, leaving 27 in service to hold waste emptied […]

The U.S. Department of Energy must be prepared to safely manage its 2,510-metric-ton stockpile of spent nuclear reactor fuel for decades until it can be placed in a permanent repository, according to new findings from a federal panel of experts. “While disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) in a deep […]

The New Mexico State Auditor’s Office has questioned whether the state Environment Department (NMED) went too easy on the Department of Energy during legal settlements in recent years over cleanup problems and violations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. In a Nov. 21 letter to New Mexico Environment Secretary Butch Tongate, […]

After a transuranic waste fire forced the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory out of service on Dec. 21, the facility has now largely returned to operations, the Department of Energy confirmed Friday. “AMWTP Treatment Facility Operations have resumed following the scheduled holiday curtailment of operations with the exception of the […]

The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday announced that it is prohibiting flights of unmanned aerial vehicles over seven Department of Energy sites around the country. Drone flights will be banned from the surface to 400 feet above ground level at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Los Alamos National […]

Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies is interested in a potential 10-year, $4 billion support services contract at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. BWXT was one of many well-known DOE contractors to send representatives last week to information sessions on DOE’s draft request for proposals on the Hanford Mission Essential […]

After extending the deadline for an extra week due to Southern California wildfires, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has closed out the public comment period on two major reports on the cleanup of the radioactively contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory. The public comment period for the Santa Susana draft program environmental impact […]

It appears unlikely that the Government Accountability Office will rule by Christmas on protests filed against the Energy Department’s award of a new $4.7 billion liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The congressional auditor had not posted a decision as of early Dec. 21. Several lawyers connected with […]

Katherine Herrera will become deputy technical director of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) effective Dec. 24, a spokesperson for the independent federal nuclear health-and-safety group said this week. In her new position, Herrera will help manage about two-thirds of the board’s full-time employees as the No. 2 official in the DNFSB’s Office of […]

Centerra has won 96 percent of its potential fee award from the Department of Energy for providing a security force to protect the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In particular, DOE in a new award-fee scorecard praised Centerra-Savannah River Site for establishing and testing an “active shooter response plan.” Centerra was also cited for […]

With the calendar year ticking away, the Energy Department has issued another procurement inquiry — this one a draft request for proposals for a contract valued at roughly $120 million over seven years to provide occupational medical services at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Energy Department announced the draft RFP on Wednesday. The […]

Jacobs Engineering Group is in discussions to divest its 41 percent share of Mission Support Alliance, the support services contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Jacobs’ acquisition of CH2M, which was completed on Dec. 15, leaves the new owner with a conflict of interest at Hanford. Along with being part […]

Having just completed its $3.27 billion buyout of CH2M, Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering released new information Monday about its business going forward as a $15 billion engineering and infrastructure heavyweight. “Today, we are celebrating the creation of a new Jacobs,” Chairman and CEO Steve Demetriou said in a news release. In the release, Jacobs praised CH2M’s […]

A lapse in communication procedures likely contributed the spread of radioactive particles at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site that contaminated 14 vehicles and led to checks at seven workers’ homes. As of midday Thursday, 240 workers at the Washington state facility had requested bioassays to determine whether they had inhaled radioactive particles. The spread […]

The work of the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup branch should not be changed significantly by its shift into the Office of the Undersecretary for Science, industry sources said this week. Energy Secretary Rick Perry announced the new home of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management on Dec. 15 as part of a larger DOE reorganization. Moving […]

A team comprised of Stoller Newport News Nuclear and BWX Technologies has been awarded a $1.39 billion contract for legacy cleanup operations at the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. This will be Stoller’s first major operational contract at the nuclear weapons lab, where BWXT is an old hand as a partner […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has authorized Waste Control Specialists (WCS) to store radioactive waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory for an additional two years, to nearly the end of 2018. The decision is one of a long list of updates to the company’s state radioactive material license approved […]

Weapons Complex Monitor will not be published on Dec. 29 in observance of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Please look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Jan. 5, 2018.

Congress on Thursday adopted another budget continuing resolution to keep the federal government, including the Energy Department and its Office of Environmental Management, running through Jan. 19 The stopgap funding measure cleared the House in a 231-188 vote, and the Senate followed up with a 66-32 decision. Just before press time for Weapons Complex Monitor, […]

The Department of Energy on Friday made official a long-rumored bureaucratic reorganization that puts the agency’s Cold War nuclear-cleanup programs under new management but leaves the quasi-independent National Nuclear Security Administration essentially unchanged. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) roughly $6.5-million-a-year Office of Environmental Management (EM), steward of environmental remediation of Cold War nuclear weapons sites […]

BWX Technologies said Thursday that Executive Chairman of the Board John Fees would become non-executive chairman as of May 4, 2018. The Lynchburg, Va.-based Department of Energy contractor noted also in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it has entered into a “transition agreement” that spells out financial compensation for Fees […]

After a three-year hiatus, the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., should resume salt mining in a matter of days, according to site management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP). The resumption would mark another key step toward a return to normalcy for the nation’s only permanent underground disposal site […]

While some details remain to be worked out, Energy Secretary Rick Perry has approved a five-year extension for Battelle Energy Alliance to continue as the management and operations contractor for the Idaho National Laboratory through Sept. 30, 2024. Battelle Energy Alliance LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Battelle Memorial Institute, manages the laboratory with integrated […]

Navarro Research and Engineering earned more than 97 percent of its total potential fiscal 2017 award fee from the Department of Energy Nevada Environmental Program Services (EPS) contract. Navarro garnered $835,975 of a potential $857,037 for the period from Oct. 1, 2016, through Sept. 30, 2017, for work at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). […]