Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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Weapons Complex Monitor will not be published on Friday, Nov. 24, in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday.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 […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor faces a $320,000 penalty after being cited by the Department of Energy for retaliating against an employee who reported a safety issue. The Energy Department issued a preliminary notice of violation (PNOV) to Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) on Wednesday. The violation, according to the department, occurred when […]

The Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state has for the first time shipped tank waste off-site for treatment and disposal. Three gallons of low-activity radioactive waste were sent in October to a nearby Perma-Fix Environmental Services facility to be grouted. It is then expected to be sent for disposal at the Waste Control Specialists […]

If it holds up under protest, the $4.7 billion contract for liquid waste management at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina will provide BWX Technologies with one of its bigger wins as a prime contractor in recent years, executives said during a quarterly call on Tuesday. But management said it would […]

Jay Mullis, the acting manager of the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) in Tennessee since October 2016, is now the permanent manager. A 30-year federal employee, Mullis had since February 2015 been deputy manager for the DOE office that oversees cleanup of former uranium enrichment activities at the Oak Ridge Reservation. […]

More days have passed than remain in astronomical autumn, which means Los Alamos National Security could soon announce the interim Los Alamos National Laboratory director who will replace the retiring Charles McMillan and run the site until the company’s contract expires Sept. 30, 2018. McMillan, who has led Los Alamos National Laboratory for about six […]

Ralph Holland, deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and project management for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), plans to retire at the end of December. Holland, who assumed responsibility for the EM Consolidated Business Center in Cincinnati in August 2015, has served in a number of management posts within DOE over the past […]

The Washington River Protection Solutions’ (WRPS) project to empty a Hanford Site double-shell waste tank with an interior leak has been named the 2017 Project of the Year by the Project Management Institute. “Washington River Protection Solutions was able to establish and follow sound project management practices that allowed its challenging and potentially dangerous project […]

The Department of Energy and its Central Plateau cleanup contractor at the Hanford Site have appealed a fine and order by the Washington state Department of Ecology over an unidentified white powder found on the floor and equipment of the PUREX processing plant. The plutonium extraction plant was closed in the 1980s, with periodic walkthroughs […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology has opened an investigation after being notified by the contractor for the Hanford Site’s waste tank farm that some liquid had been poured into the soil in central Hanford in August. The liquid was in four used containers that had sat out in the weather for a couple years […]

Recently obtained email messages indicate the Department of Justice might be investigating time-card issues involving the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) project at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The investigation follows two settlements in recent years for alleged time-card fraud at the Hanford waste tank farms. An email sent on July 27 […]

The Santa Fe City Council is urging the U.S. Energy Department and New Mexico Environment Department to “strengthen” a 2016 consent order governing cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and also suspend any expanded plutonium pit production at the site “until safety issues are resolved.” The resolution, passed Oct. 25, calls for additional characterization […]

Processing of potentially combustible waste containers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory could be finished by Thanksgiving, a source in New Mexico said this week. That would be ahead of the latest official schedule for completion in December. An official with the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management told the Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory […]