Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

With a large budget request, a programmatic review process encompassing top officials at Department of Energy headquarters and sites, and political appointees who seem to share a “bias for action,” there is cause for optimism about increasing the pace of cleanup of DOE’s nuclear legacy, officials said Wednesday. That was the sense that emerged following […]

Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management James Owendoff said Wednesday not to expect a major formal “list” of objectives to be published from his recently completed 45-day review of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office. “There is not a list out there per se,” he said during DOE’s National Cleanup Workshop in Alexandria, […]

The general manager of Waste Treatment Completion Co., the new subcontractor for the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, is on medical leave. Acting general manager Mike Costas is filling in for general manager Scott Oxenford. Costas previously served as the manager of functions for the Waste Treatment Plant, which included […]

SUMMERLIN, Nev. — Plans for a new permanent ventilation system at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico should not be held back by a continuing resolution that will keep the federal government running into December, DOE’s top official at the site said Wednesday. Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader shared his prediction […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site has lost about 900 jobs over the past five years, primarily due to attrition, according to a recent economic impact study. Released late last month, the study – The Savannah River Site: Economic Impact and Workforce Transition – was prepared by the SRS Community Reuse Organization (SRSCRO), a group tasked with working […]

The findings of a recent report questioning the cohesion of the bedrock on which a nuclear waste disposal facility is to be built in Ohio has not deterred the Energy Department from moving forward with the project. “Based on the intensive review of all the information provided in the Ferguson Group Report, DOE does not […]

SUMMERLIN, Nev. — The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) is establishing a new unit that will focus on completing the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant, Roger Jarrell, senior adviser to the secretary of energy for environmental management, said Tuesday. Efforts are being made to streamline management decisions at EM, a roughly $6 billion-per-year […]

The Energy Department is likely to extend the nearly expired contract for environmental management services at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico ahead of awarding a new deal, an observer said Thursday. Lab management and operations prime Los Alamos National Security holds a two-year, $230 million “bridge” legacy nuclear cleanup contract that ends […]

The Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board (ORSSAB) has identified five priorities in fiscal 2019 for cleanup of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. The federally appointed advisory panel submitted a two-page list of remediation recommendations for consideration by DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (EM) in preparing the funding request […]

The Department of Energy has officially acknowledged it will miss the Sept. 30 milestone set under the Tri-Party Agreement to have the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant torn down to slab on grade. The federal agency notified its regulators, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington state Department of Ecology, on Sept. 1.  “Tremendous progress […]

The Department of Energy should take a number of steps to ensure it comprehensively understands its transuranic waste management needs as it looks to dispose of 34 metric tons of diluted plutonium at its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, the Government Accountability Office said in a report Tuesday. WIPP is the nation’s sole permanent underground […]

Hanford Office of River Protection Manager Retiring Kevin Smith, the manager of the Department of Energy Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site in Washington state, plans to retire Sept. 30. He gave the word to Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Aug. 15 when the DOE chief visited Hanford. “The Department of Energy is […]

Waste Control Specialists has withdrawn a request for an exemption from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to store select radioactive waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The exemption became unnecessary after all shipments of transuranic waste to Waste Control Specialists’ storage complex in West Texas were halted when a container of material from the Energy […]

A panel of experts studying options for stabilizing the second radioactive waste storage tunnel at the Hanford Site’s PUREX Plant is scheduled to meet in teleconference for a second time today. The group’s first meeting, held a week earlier, was largely organizational, with no decisions made or a firm schedule set for future meetings. The […]

A postgraduate student intern and an Oak Ridge Associated Universities researcher in Tennessee are working to replicate an infamous 1976 radiation accident at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The event exposed Harold McCluskey, a chemical worker who would become known as “The Atomic Man,” to the highest known level of the radioactive isotope […]

A portion of the Savannah River Site’s security personnel with union representation are on the job this week even as nearly 300 of their colleagues remain on strike in the wake of failed labor negotiations. Of the 337 security employees represented by the United Professional Pro-Force of Savannah River (PPSR), 48 are currently working. That encompasses workers who […]

A system-wide liquid waste processing outage at the Savannah River Site (SRS) is still expected to last through the end of the year, as workers continue to make strides in other key areas of the Energy Department facility’s liquid waste mission. The site reported in February that it was halting all liquid waste processing due to […]

Don’t be surprised to see acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management James Owendoff continue to lead the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup program for several more months, a longtime industry observer told Weapons Complex Monitor this week. “I think they have got a clean slate at DOE on EM-1 candidates,” the source said. Owendoff, a longtime […]

Longenecker & Associates’ director of technology and international programs has been promoted to the new position of vice president for corporate programs, the consulting firm and Energy Department contractor said Tuesday. The Las Vegas-based company in 2015 hired Laurie Judd away from NuVision Engineering, where he was vice president for government programs. Judd will retain […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology on Thursday issued a $16,000 penalty against the Department of Energy and one of its contractors for failing to identify white powder found during the last two annual inspections of the Hanford Site’s PUREX Plant. The state requires annual detailed inspections of the plant, outlining specific routes through the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Thursday it is is pleased with the outcome of a federal operational readiness review (FORR) for the Transuranic Waste Facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, in which 12 of the 13 functional areas passed muster. “This was a successful review in the eyes of […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) might have to wait to get the funding boost being considered on Capitol Hill, assuming an anticipated short-term budget measure becomes reality in the next few weeks. Congress, returning to Washington on Tuesday after its August recess, has only a few weeks to pass some sort of […]

The head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico told local officials Tuesday that awarding a new environmental management contract for the facility is taking longer than expected. “We had expected that the announcement would have already been made on that,” LANL Director Charles McMillan told a meeting of the Los Alamos […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has as of this week treated half of its stock of containers filled with a volatile mix of remediated nitrate salts and organic kitty litter, a spokesman said Tuesday. Thirty of 60 drums of waste from Cold War-era nuclear weapons operations have been processed at the Energy […]

The state of Idaho and the Department of Energy have resolved a $648,000 fine levied for the federal agency’s failure to start operating a liquid waste treatment facility at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) was built to process 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste produced during Cold War-era spent […]

Management at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has acknowledged it will not meet upcoming contractual milestones for treatment of nitrate salts, according to a recently released site report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The news comes just days ahead of the scheduled period for the Department of Energy to award […]

Atkins executive Alan Parker has voluntarily withdrawn his name from consideration as a candidate for the position of Energy Department assistant secretary for environmental management, industry sources said. Parker, president and project manager for the Atkins-led DOE contractor Mid-America Conversion Services (now providing depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion at facilities in Ohio and Kentucky), was reported in […]