Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Members of the House of Representatives have thrown early support in the latest budget process behind sustaining funding for the MOX project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, but their colleagues in the Senate are so far silent on whether they will also again back the controversial program. The House version of the fiscal 2018 […]

After a federal judge blocked Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists’ takeover by EnergySolutions of Salt Lake City, the Texas company is still trying to figure out what to do with more than 100 potentially flammable containers of transuranic waste it is storing for the Energy Department. Asked what the canceled merger means for the company’s contract […]

CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. and the Washington state Department of Ecology have reached a settlement agreement over waste storage includes the waiver of a $50,000 penalty against the Hanford Site cleanup contractor. The state had accused CH2M in August 2016 of breaching requirements for the storage of five containers of waste at Hanford’s T Plant, […]

Lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee this week approved a fiscal 2018 energy budget that “fully supports” the Department of Energy’s plan to create a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada — though in a slightly different way than the White House imagined. “The Committee fully supports the Administration’s position to move […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico remains compliant with U.S. environmental law essential to the transuranic waste facility’s ongoing operations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. Every five years, under the federal law that created the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), EPA must recertify that the Department of Energy is complying with the […]

Adams Natural Resources Consulting Services of Carson City, Nev., will aid Nevada’s legal efforts to oppose the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository for another year, under a contract modification approved Wednesday. Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt, Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) and Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske approved the extension during a state Board of […]

Betsy Connell was still employed as chief of staff for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management as of July 3, a government source said. An article in the June 30 issue of Weapons Complex Monitor (“Cange Leads EM Personnel Exodus” Vol. 28, No. 6) cited informed sources saying she was one of three senior DOE officials […]

A large wildfire spread across the security perimeter of the Hanford Site onto the main portion of the facility late Sunday night, burning 1,644 acres. The overall fire was contained to 30,984 acres by Thursday, but the Hanford Fire Department had the blaze on the main portion of the Department of Energy site contained at […]

Days after the transition was set to start, the Energy Department has yet to announce who will take over the next decade of legacy nuclear cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory under a contract that went out to bid in September. In its final request for proposals, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) advised […]

Stephen Kadenacy on June 30 formally ended his nearly two-year tenure as president and chief operating officer of global engineering firm AECOM, one of the major contractors at Department of Energy nuclear sites around the country. Kadenacy has been with AECOM for nearly a decade, starting as senior vice president for finance in 2008 and […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) on Monday issued a request for proposals for a technical services support contract for its Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract line item number is a small-business set aside with a maximum value of services of $40 million. It covers cybersecurity, information-technology support services, quality […]

Montreal-based global engineering company SNC-Lavalin as of Monday is the new owner of British engineering and project manager provider WS Atkins, an increasingly significant player in cleanup of the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear complex. The $3.6 billion (CAN) deal brings the 18,000-employee Atkins, and its $3.5 billion (CAN) in annual revenue, under the SNC-Lavalin […]

Three of the 26 companies recognized for safety excellence in 2016 by the state of South Carolina are contractors at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site. The companies are: liquid waste management contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR); management and operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS); and security provider Centerra. The Energy Department reported […]

The Energy Department has received permission from the state of New Mexico to keep 26 containers of potentially flammable waste above ground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) until June 30, 2018. The agency made the request on June 9 and received the OK from the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) on June 23, according to a […]

A House subcommittee on Wednesday approved a fiscal 2018 spending bill that would hold the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup budget roughly even with the current appropriation. That is about all that is known about the lower chamber’s plans for the department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) for the fiscal year beginnng Oct. 1, as lawmakers will not […]

A venture aimed at expediting remediation of nuclear waste at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina could cost more than the original $50 million estimate unless the management team in charge can rein in expenses, a project stakeholder said this week. The site’s management and operations contractor, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions […]

The village of Piketon, Ohio, has renewed calls for the Energy Department to cancel a planned nuclear waste disposal facility at the nearby Portsmouth Site, citing a new report that claims the agency plans to build the landfill on fractured bedrock. Piketon Mayor Billy Spencer, who for years has opposed what is officially known as an […]

Three Washington state Democrats made a last-minute attempt to revive a proposal in the state Legislature to help ill personnel from the Hanford Site win easier approval of workers’ compensation claims. Their bill was scheduled for discussion Wednesday in an executive session of the Senate Commerce, Labor and, Sports Committee, but the meeting was canceled […]

The New Mexico Environment Department will continue non-regulatory oversight of the Energy Department’s environmental monitoring programs at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant under a five-year, $2-million grant extension announced Thursday. The grant now will run through June 30, 2022, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management wrote in a press release. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) […]

Through June 9, the Energy Department had made 21 shipments of transuranic waste to the reopened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for disposal, according to the latest official DOE records. The count includes only shipments that have been buried at the deep-underground salt mine near Carlsbad, N.M., for two weeks, meaning the actual shipment total in […]

UCOR, prime cleanup contractor for the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge site in Tennessee, took home about 92 percent of its possible award fee for the six-month period that ended March 31, raking in roughly $3.6 million. The company, an AECOM-led consortium now working under the first and final option of a nine-year contract set to expire […]

The Energy Department replaced Susan Cange as the acting head of its nuclear cleanup program this week, the most prominent of a trio of June departures from the Office of Environmental Management’s Washington headquarters. DOE veteran James Owendoff replaces Cange as both acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Environmental Management […]

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Thursday demanded the Energy Department brief Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs staff by July 21 about what the senior senator from Missouri considers a questionable contracting arrangement between Bechtel National and AECOM at DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state. McCaskill, the committee’s ranking Democrat, questioned in a letter to […]

Nearly two months after a decades-old tunnel containing irradiated equipment was found to have partially collapsed at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the Energy Department said Friday a similar tunnel is also at risk of collapse. Hanford was rocked May 9 when personnel discovered a 20-foot by 20-foot section of Tunnel 1 […]

Lawmakers challenged Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Tuesday to commit to resolving the issues that are preventing Congress from taking a definitive stance on the future of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina. Perry reaffirmed the Energy Department’s intentions on MOX during a House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee budget hearing, saying […]

Money for liquid waste processing and tank closures at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) would tick up if Congress approves funding levels proposed by President Donald Trump for fiscal 2018. All told, the budget proposal would provide $1.28 billion for the DOE facility in South Carolina, according to the detailed version of the budget […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory this week was about one-sixth of the way through treatment of dozens of containers of potentially explosive waste, an official with a watchdog organization said Thursday following a visit to the Department of Energy facility in northern New Mexico. Workers as of Wednesday were processing a ninth container of inappropriately remediated […]