Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 […]

The Department of Energy has racked up more than $1 million in new penalties from the state of Idaho over the failure to begin operation of a liquid waste treatment facility at the Idaho National Laboratory. The total fines levied against DOE and its current and former contractors on the project now stands at just […]

Trial in the lawsuit over worker protection from vapors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has been reset for June 11, 2018, at the request of all parties in the case. This is the third time plaintiffs and defendants have jointly requested a delay in the federal trial to allow for […]

The Savannah River Site expects to complete its coal ash remediation project in early 2019, according to the Department of Energy. The $74 million cleanup project involves burying 1.3 million cubic yards of ash now stored on 90 acres of land at the Department of Energy facility in South Carolina. The ash was generated by coal-fueled facilities used […]

Been there, heard that, was the reaction from Washington state’s two U.S. senators as Energy Secretary Rick Perry defended budget cuts proposed in the administration’s fiscal 2018 request for the Hanford Site. Perry was in the hot seat for three days in succession this week, answering questions about proposed funding levels for cleanup at the […]

An article in the June 16 edition of Weapons Complex Monitor, “DOE Budget Plan Doubles Funding for WIPP Ventilation,” did not include the full fiscal 2018 Environmental Management funding request for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge, Tenn., site. The total amount is $390.2 million.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry raised eyebrows this week by listing facilities in Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas as possible interim storage sites for U.S. nuclear waste, then a day later clarified that his agency has made no decisions on any potential locations. In successive budget hearings before House and Senate Appropriations committees, though, Perry left no […]

The head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) — the agency’s independent nuclear safety and security enforcer — will retire “at the end of the summer,” according to a letter he sent to industry colleagues Thursday. “Last Friday I informed Secretary Perry’s [chief of staff] and [deputy chief of staff] that […]

It could take the Department of Energy four to six months to select its candidate to lead the Office of Environmental Management and move the nominee through the Senate confirmation process, an informed source said this week. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has not yet put any of his management team in place since his Senate […]

The Savannah River Site is on pace to restart liquid waste operations “toward the end of the year,” according to a SRS Facebook post that also detailed progress in switching out melters at one of the site’s main waste processing facilities. The update Monday says Melter 3 recently arrived at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), which […]

A committee of the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) this week urged the Energy Department to step up efforts to regulate drone flights over the facility in South Carolina. Tuesday’s vote came two months after the CAB’s Strategic and Legacy Management Committee tabled the recommendation. At the time, members determined it was best to […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff on Tuesday authorized shipment by road of various forms of waste from the shuttered American Centrifuge project in Ohio to the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site. The approval was signed on the same day that the NRC posted a Federal Register notice of its finding of no significant impact from the […]

Plaintiffs and defendants in the lawsuit over chemical vapors protection for workers at the Hanford Site in Washington state have asked for another delay in the trial as they try to reach a settlement agreement. The trial already has been postponed twice to allow the parties to pursue mediation. Now, the sides have asked U.S. […]

Disputes over several pieces of language did not stop the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee on Thursday from sending legislation to advance interim and permanent storage of U.S. nuclear waste to the full panel for consideration. Democrats offered three amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 during a markup session, but […]

Bechtel National workers have completed assembling the first melter at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant, the Department of Energy announced Thursday. Completion of the project earned the contractor $4.275 million in incentive pay. The melter is one of two that will be used at the plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, which DOE aims to begin […]

The Department of Energy intends to more than double funding in fiscal 2018 for work on the new permanent ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to the detailed budget justification released this week for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. Airflow at the transuranic waste storage mine was reduced drastically […]

The liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina wants a federal judge to throw out a discrimination lawsuit, saying the former employee and plaintiff “has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” The lawsuit, filed April 24, is one of two open discrimination suits against Savannah […]

The last of the 94 vertically buried pipes filled with radioactive waste have been removed from the Hanford Site’s 618-10 Burial Ground, and other cleanup work there is nearing completion, according to the Department of Energy and cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. Former river corridor remediation contractor Washington Closure Hanford developed a plan […]

Twenty-six containers of transuranic waste shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for disposal years ago might not be buried there until 2018, the Energy Department disclosed on June 9 in a regulatory filing. Hundreds of containers of transuranic waste — radioactively contaminated material and equipment produced by Cold War nuclear weapons programs — were […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 9 said it has begun the technical review of the Energy Department’s request for a 20-year license extension for storage in Idaho of debris from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. The Energy Department submitted the request by letter on March 6, after which the NRC carried out an acceptance review […]