Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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Atkins executive Alan Parker has voluntarily withdrawn his name from consideration as a candidate for the position of Energy Department assistant secretary for environmental management, industry sources said.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 […]

One of the primary cleanup contractors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has finished its assessment of the June spread of contamination during demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant. The evaluation by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation identified a need to augment the “work package hazard control set” and to improve measures […]

The Department of Energy is taking additional steps to stabilize two decades-old underground tunnels filled with radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, after one of them partially collapsed earlier this year. Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. announced Tuesday that it had selected a subcontractor to fill the damaged PUREX […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday formally started the bidding process on one or multiple new contracts for disposal of federal low-level waste and mixed-low-level waste. Interested parties have until Sept. 22 to submit questions, to LLW_MLLWDisposal@emcbc.doe.gov. Bids are due by 3 p.m. Oct. 23 via FedConnect. “DOE intends, but is not required, to award one […]

HBO’s satirical “Last Week Tonight” on Sunday gave over much of its 30-minute broadcast time to the potential threat posed to the United States by its growing stockpile of nuclear waste. Using data from sources including the Nuclear Energy Institute and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, host John Oliver called attention to more than 71,000 tons of spent […]

A stop work order was issued at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant after workers learned that plutonium and americium were found in high-volume air samples collected at the Energy Department facility’s Rattlesnake Barricade. The samples were collected by the Washington state Department of Health on June 8, the day workers were ordered to take […]

Hanford Site workers have begun the push to empty most of the remaining waste in the final tank at the C Tank Farm, 19 years after preparations for waste retrieval at the farm began. If work goes as planned, Tank C-105 could be emptied to regulatory standards by the end of the year. C-105 is […]

The parties to a federal lawsuit on protection of Hanford Site workers from chemical vapors are requesting another trial delay while they pursue a settlement agreement. Plaintiffs and defendants asked U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice on Wednesday to postpone the trial from June 11, 2018, to July 25, 2018. It is the fourth trial delay […]

Congress skipped town, and so did many other readers, but that didn’t stop news from breaking during the ExchangeMonitor’s annual August publication break. As chronicled in the Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, here are a few stories that we’ve been following. Fluor Posts Job Ad For SRS Liquid Waste Work Ahead of Contract Award Fluor Corp. […]

Bad news about power plants, nuclear and otherwise, dominated discussion during Fluor Corp.’s second-quarter earnings call Thursday, shouldering out talk of the company’s work on clearnup of the Energy Deaprtment’s nuclear legacy. That latter work has gone well this year for the company, according to its latest 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fluor […]

The ExchangeMonitor is following Congress into August recess, and Weapons Complex Monitor will not be published during the second and third weeks of the month. We’ll still be in the office, so keep the news tips coming, and look for the next weekly newsletter in your inbox on Friday, Aug. 25.  

Progressing toward the end of decontamination and decommissioning of an industrial-scale uranium-enrichment demonstration in Ohio, uranium fuel broker Centrus Energy Corp. saw its quarterly losses widen and revenue shrink in the three months ended June 30. The results were not a surprise to the company, CEO Daniel Poneman, the former U.S. deputy energy secretary, said in […]

The Department of Energy plans by the end of August to release a draft request for proposals to replace the contract now held by Mission Support Alliance for services at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The new Hanford mission essential services contractor would provide site services, security and emergency operations, land management, information technology […]

The Department of Energy said this week it wants to bring in a “best and brightest” panel of experts to study the second tunnel used to store radioactive waste from the Hanford Site’s PUREX plant. The federal agency told Washington state Tuesday that it would enhance surveillance and monitoring until it proposes a method for […]

In a long-awaited development that figures to send ripples throughout the Energy Department’s Cold War nuclear cleanup program, Jacobs Engineering of Dallas will acquire engineering services company CH2M for $2.85 billion in cash and stock. Jacobs will also assume $416 million of CH2M debt under the transaction, which is expected to close in the fourth […]

Department of Energy support services contractor Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve) has announced the selection of Matthew C. “Cody” Lambert as its first chief technology officer. Lambert’s move from Pro2Serve’s director of software engineering to CTO is intended to more fully integrate information technology among the Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based technical and engineering services specialists’ range of […]

Glyn Trenchard has been named assistant manager of the Hanford Site Tank Farms Project for the Department of Energy Office of River Protection. He will oversee the storage, treatment, and disposal of 56 million gallons of waste stored in underground tanks starting Aug. 6. Trenchard joined the Office of River Protection in 1998 and has […]

French waste management company Veolia plans to acquire Ohio-based Wastren Advantage in a move that would further boost the Paris-based company’s reach into the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup market. “I can confirm we are in the process of being acquired by Veolia subject to the necessary approvals from DOE for our mitigated entity,” Wastren Chief […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has invited Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration leadership to speak at a public hearing Sept. 13 on the status of emergency management across defense nuclear facilities. The hearing, to be held at the DNFSB’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, will allow DOE officials to make prepared remarks on the […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry postponed a visit this week to the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said. The meeting had not been rescheduled at deadline Friday for Weapons Complex Monitor. “While I’m disappointed that Secretary Perry cannot make it to Piketon on Monday I’m pleased he has indicated that he […]

The Energy Department will host a pair of meetings about the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico later this month, including an industry day for those interested in bidding on a contract to build parts of the mine’s new ventilation system. The first of the two meetings, scheduled for Aug. 8, involves “strategic planning for […]

Tuesday was the 10th anniversary of the start of construction of the Energy Department’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina — an occasion unheralded by either the agency or its contractor while lawmakers again debate whether to cancel the facility. As part of an arms-control agreement with Russia, initiated in 2000 and finalized in 2010, […]