Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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, […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site is this week sending its eighth shipment of transuranic (TRU) waste in this fiscal year to the reopened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. The shipment meets the projection managers at the South Carolina facility set forth earlier this year. Two shipments apiece were sent to […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries on Thursday reported revenue of $1.86 billion in the second quarter of 2017, up by 9.3 percent from the $1.7 billion it reported during the same period last year. The shipbuilder collected $237 million in operating income – up from $217 million last year – and $186 million in cash from operations, […]

Once and future Energy Department hand Dan Brouillette was confirmed as the agency’s next deputy secretary Thursday after a bipartisan 79-17 vote in the U.S. Senate. The floodgates opened Thursday after Brouillette’s confirmation, as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee subsequently voted that day to send two more senior DOE leadership nominees to the floor. […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry is scheduled to travel to Ohio on July 31 to view the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and American Centrifuge Project, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) announced on July 21. “I’m excited to announce that Secretary Perry has accepted my invitation to visit the cleanup site of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant to get […]

At the Energy Department’s request, the congressionally chartered National Academies will study the potential for sending 34 metric tons of processed weapon-grade plutonium — and possibly other waste — to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. Besides the 34 metric tons of plutonium — which under an arms control pact with Russia […]

Demolition began Wednesday on the Hanford Site’s Z Plant, the main processing building at the Plutonium Finishing Plant. “Starting the work on the main processing facility complex marks the final step in demolition” of the Plutonium Finishing Plant, which was used during the Cold War to shape the material for use in nuclear weapons, said […]

A local advisory board this week voiced its opposition to using the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina for interim storage of nuclear waste, but could not come to agreement on a request for DOE to prohibit shipments to the facility of highly enriched uranium from Germany. The Energy Department should […]

Lockheed Martin and Leidos have allocated liabilities between themselves should the Department of Justice pursue a claim in connection with an ongoing false claims investigation of Mission Support Alliance, the support services contractor at the Hanford Site, according to a quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission filing from Lockheed Martin. In August 2016, Lockheed completed the […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would get $6.4 billion for fiscal 2018, and take on cleanup responsibility for three new facilities, under a DOE budget approved Thursday by the House of Representatives. The House approved the 2018 DOE budget recommendation on a highly-partisan 235-192 vote, with five Democrats voting “aye” and five Republicans […]

The Donald Trump administration is close to a mostly Republican Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but is still operating with a Democratic-leaning Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The White House in January began an ideological shift at both five-member groups, but the NRC, which regulates commercial nuclear power plants and civilian nuclear waste, is further along in its […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory is still waiting on word regarding a new contract for legacy nuclear cleanup at the Department of Energy facility in New Mexico, an official said Tuesday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) in September 2016 issued its final request for proposals for the contract, which could be worth up to […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has delayed a planned vote on whether to send three of President Donald Trump’s nominees for senior Energy Department roles to the full Senate for confirmation. The would-be DOE officials scheduled for committee votes Thursday were: Mark Wesley Menezes, a lobbyist for Berkshire Hathaway Energy tapped to be undersecretary for the Department of […]

The Energy Department on Wednesday released a request for information on a follow-up paramilitary security services contract at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. Centerra LLC is the incumbent SRS security contractor. Its roughly $1 billion security services for safeguard of special nuclear material contract, awarded in 2009, expires on Oct. 7, 2019. DOE […]

Jacobs Engineering, of Dallas, is in talks to purchase Dallas-based engineering firm and DOE nuclear contractor CH2M, the U.K. Telegraph reported last week. The rumored purchase, reported Sunday by the Telegraph to be in danger of collapsing, comes as CH2M is busily seeking even more nuclear cleanup work from the Department of Energy. Spokespersons for CH2M and Jacobs did not […]

The Department of Energy would be required to establish a resource center to support ill and injured Hanford Site workers in their efforts to obtain workers’ compensation, under language added to the U.S. Senate appropriations bill covering DOE for the next fiscal year. The language, inserted by Washington state’s two Democratic senators, Patty Murray and […]

The lead liquid waste contractor at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., on July 18 finished building the Saltstone Disposal Unit- (SDU) 6: the first of seven planned 30-million-plus-gallon tanks that will store radioactive salt waste left over from processing some 35 million gallons of Cold War liquid waste, the Department of Energy said […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would get some $6.6 billion in fiscal 2018 and take on $55 million worth of new cleanup projects from active nuclear-weapon sites, under a budget bill approved Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The panel’s recommendation for the Office of Environmental Management (EM) is nearly 3 percent above the […]