Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Assuming CH2M shareholders approve that company’s acquisition by Jacobs Engineering in a few weeks, Jacobs Chairman and CEO Steve Demetriou sees the combined company getting off to “a running start.” During a conference call with Wall Street analysts on Nov. 21 following release of Jacobs’ quarterly earnings, Demetriou said he has already visited many CH2M […]

Controlling the costs of multibillion-dollar Cold War cleanup projects remains a struggle for the Energy Department and its Office of Environmental Management, the DOE Office of inspector General said in a Nov. 27 special report. In the report, the Inspector General’s Office analyzed management challenges facing the department and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology has slated a Dec. 7 public meeting on changes to the dangerous waste permit sought by contractor Bechtel National for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) being built at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. Bechtel is seeking a Class 2 modification to its existing permit from the […]

Cleanup has been completed on one of the most contaminated spots within the sprawling Hanford Site in southeast Washington state, the Energy Department announced Thursday. Hanford contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation has finished the eight-year remediation project at the 618-10 Burial Ground and two nearby waste sites. In all, work crews extracted more than 512,000 […]

There doesn’t seem to be much chatter now on a concern that contractors raised vocally in September about the manner in which the Energy Department doles out payments for work being performed within its nuclear cleanup complex. The problem of DOE contract payments being distributed in small monthly increments, and sometimes creating cash flow problems, […]

Salt mining at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is expected to resume within a matter of weeks, a spokesman for site management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said last week. In addition, a director of mining should be hired in early 2018 for the underground transuranic waste storage facility near Carlsbad, […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state on Monday completed filling with grout the PUREX Plant tunnel that was discovered partially collapsed on May 9. The tunnel holds eight railcars loaded with highly radioactively contaminated equipment from the shuttered plutonium extraction plant. “Since a portion of the tunnel’s roof collapsed last […]

The U.S. Department of Energy is seeking partial dismissal of two protests filed with the Government Accountability Office by losing bidders for the recently awarded $4.7 billion contract for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The Energy Department on Oct. 12 awarded the new work to Savannah River EcoManagement, a […]

AECOM management said Monday the company remains a major player in cleaning up the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear complex and believes it has a real chance of overturning the recent loss of the $4.7 billion contract for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. “We still consider the Savannah River […]

Centrus Energy said this week it anticipates completing cleanup of its retired advanced centrifuge technology demonstration site in Piketon, Ohio, by the end of the year. Decontamination and decommissioning of the American Centrifuge facility began in the second quarter of 2016 after the Department of Energy cut off funding for the project the year before […]

CH2M shareholders are scheduled to vote Dec. 13 on the company’s proposed buyout by Jacobs Engineering, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The shareholder meeting will be held at company headquarters in Englewood, Colo., CH2M said in a Nov. 13 10-Q filing. Stockholder approval is one of the final […]

The Hanford Advisory Board is calling for the Department of Energy to ramp up to $4 billion in annual spending for cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state, despite DOE officials saying that will not happen. A combination of operating the Waste Treatment Plant starting within a half-decade while construction continues on parts of […]

The Environmental Protection Agency is considering relocating its program manager for the Energy Department’s Hanford Site away from the nearby city of Richland. Acting program manager Laura Buelow told the Hanford Advisory Board (HAB) last week that a decision on potentially basing the manager on the other side of Washington state in Seattle would be […]

A community advisory board to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina wants the Energy Department to provide funding to start construction of a vault that will store retired waste processing equipment. In a recommendation approved Tuesday, the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) asked DOE to get a head start on building a vault to […]

BWX Technologies said Thursday that it has selected Kenneth Camplin as the new president of the company’s Nuclear Services Group, a role Camplin has filled on an acting basis since last December. Camplin, previously chief business development officer for BWXT, assumed the helm of the Nuclear Service Group after Bill Fox left BWXT to pursue […]

Perma-Fix Environmental Services on Nov. 10 indicated it is moving ahead with testing of technology for treating low-activity radioactive waste from the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, while acknowledging funding challenges facing its medical isotope program. The Atlanta-based based nuclear services and waste management specialist offered the update in a 10-Q filing with the U.S. […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state on Monday completed filling with grout the PUREX Plant tunnel that was discovered partially collapsed on May 9. The tunnel holds eight railcars loaded with highly radioactively contaminated equipment from the shuttered plutonium extraction plant. “Since a portion of the tunnel’s roof collapsed last […]

Weapons Complex Monitor will not be published on Friday, Nov. 24, in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Dec. 1.

Contractor CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) has earned $300,000, or 66 percent, of its potential fee from the Energy Department for six months of cleanup work at the West Valley Demonstration Project near Buffalo, N.Y. The fee was awarded for the joint venture’s performance between March 1 and Aug. 29 of this year, according […]

No decisions were made about possible ways to speed up certain cleanup operations at the Hanford Site during a meeting Nov. 9 between top officials from the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management and the Washington state Department of Ecology. Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management (EM) James Owendoff met with Ecology Department Director […]

Construction of the Mercury Treatment Facility at the Department of Energy’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee will ceremonially begin Monday with assistance from two U.S. lawmakers. Scheduled to attend the 10 a.m. Nov. 20 groundbreaking ceremony are Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.). The Energy […]

President Donald Trump plans to nominate nuclear industry lobbyist and former Capitol Hill staffer Melissa Burnison as assistant secretary of energy for congressional and intergovernmental affairs, the White House announced Wednesday. If nominated and then confirmed by the Senate, Burnison would lead the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs as the principal Department of Energy […]

The Department of Energy has picked Delmar Noyes as the assistant manager for Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant startup, commissioning, and integration, effective Nov. 12. He will support integration of the waste storage tank farm and the Waste Treatment Plant to assure close coordination during startup and commissioning of Hanford’s tank waste treatment facilities and […]

Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management (EM) James Owendoff was scheduled to meet with Washington state Department of Ecology Director Maia Bellon on Thursday, at least in part to discuss ideas about speeding up progress on construction of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site, a state official confirmed. The visit follows […]

A visual inspection of the Hanford Site’s oldest double-shell waste tank has found at least seven leaks from the inner shell. The Department of Energy confirmed in 2012 that Tank AY-102 had a slow leak from its inner shell into the space between its shells. No waste is believed to have breached the outer shell […]

The U.S. Energy Department confirmed Tuesday that the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has finished treating 60 potentially combustible containers of radioactive waste, ending ahead of the latest targeted date and setting the stage for the next phase of nitrate salt processing. The drums contained a mix of nitrate salts and organic kitty […]

Dennis Wilson has been elected as the new chairman of the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board (ORSSAB) in Tennessee for fiscal 2018. The panel of up to 22 members makes recommendations to DOE regarding operations at the Oak Ridge Reservation, home to a large-scale cleanup of former uranium enrichment operations. ORSSAB held […]

The Government Accountability Office would like federal agencies to increase their collaboration on research into low-dose radiation, and it has recommended the Energy Department lead such an effort. But DOE hasn’t been eager to assume such a role, the GAO said in a Nov. 1 report. People who work at nuclear power plants, defense waste […]