Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 […]

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators plans to reintroduce a bill that, in its most recent form, would have created a new federal agency dedicated to dealing with nuclear waste, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said during a Wednesday hearing here on Capitol Hill. Alexander would sponsor the legislation along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). The […]

The contractor building the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina, locked in a dispute with the federal government over the project’s future, argued the Energy Department’s failure to negotiate a contract modification “in good faith” is costing the company money. On June 1, the U.S. Civilian Board of Contract Appeals denied CB&I AREVA […]

The Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget request for the Hanford Site’s Richland Operations Office is inadequate, regulators for the Department of Energy facility in Washington state said Wednesday during discussions at a Hanford Advisory Board meeting and a public budget meeting. The proposed $800 million for the office – which includes security and cybersecurity […]

WASHINGTON — In a mostly symbolic milestone that nevertheless carries measurable cost savings, the Energy Department could close out Washington Closure Hanford’s contract by the end of 2017, a senior DOE official said here Wednesday. “I think we may be at the end of this year able to say we have everything done to close […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers from Ohio are prodding Energy Secretary Rick Perry to visit the Portsmouth Site their state: one of the legacy nuclear cleanup sites Perry has yet to see since taking the reins at the Energy Department in March. “We think it would be important [for Perry] to be there and have some […]

When Westinghouse Government Services opened an office just outside Washington, D.C., this week, the resurgent nuclear-cleanup contractor threw itself a little housewarming party. Many of the guests were members of what company President Cathy Hickey calls “the DOE contractors club:” a tight-knit group of sometimes-competitive, sometimes-cooperative outfits that includes heavyweights such as AECOM, Bechtel, BWX […]

The Energy Department this week was to debrief the runners-up for the potentially 10-year, $1.5 billion contract won by a CH2M-led team for continued cleanup of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky. DOE received four bids for the contract, which the agency announced May 26 went to Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership. The team also includes […]

Workers at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant were ordered to take cover indoors for more than three hours Thursday morning as a precaution after an air monitor detected low levels of airborne contamination, according to the Department of Energy. A survey subsequently found spots of radioactive contamination had spread outside the demolition zone established […]

Two Savannah River Remediation workers were contaminated with beta and gamma radiation at the Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility this week, according to an official Department of Energy account of the incident. The incident occurred Wednesday when one employee spilled a sample of liquid waste pulled from an oil drum. The sample splattered […]

WASHINGTON — Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Sue Cange would not comment Wednesday about rumors that she will be replaced as the temporary head of DOE’s Cold War nuclear-cleanup program. Politico Pro first reported Wednesday that DOE will replace Cange, an agency veteran who came to DOE headquarters after managing cleanup at the […]

CAST Specialty Transportation will haul transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant over the next five years under a potentially $112 million contract announced by the Energy Department Thursday. Under the deal, an indefinite-quantity, indefinite-delivery contract using firm fixed-price task orders, CAST “will provide facilities, personnel, and equipment to operate a local terminal within […]

Fluor Idaho sent an improperly sealed container of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant last month, but inspectors at that New Mexico disposal facility caught the mistake, according to a public notice from the Energy Department. The waste, shipped to WIPP May 10 in a TRUPACT-II container that can hold around 1.5 cubic […]

The Department of Energy is making plans to fill the partially collapsed waste tunnel at the Hanford PUREX plant with grout, the agency said in a Wednesday meeting with state regulators and site contractor CH2M Plateau Remediation Company. Personnel at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., discovered a 20-foot-long breach in the Purex tunnel May […]

No: NRC Didn’t Resume Yucca Mountain License Hearings This Week The Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not resume consideration of the Energy Department’s application to license Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear waste repository, despite media reports to the contrary sparked by a routine notice published in the federal register this week. The notice that appeared […]

Ed McGinnis was appointed deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy, a promotion for the long-time DOE civil servant who had been deputy assistant secretary for international nuclear energy policy and cooperation since 2007. In his new role, which did not require Senate confirmation, McGinnis is the number-two man at the DOE office responsible for civilian […]

A least one liquid waste-related operation is ongoing at the Savannah River Site, despite the temporary halting of liquid waste processing earlier this year. At a Savannah River Site (SRS) Citizens Advisory Board meeting last week, a DOE official said the site is about halfway through its checklist on the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF): […]

The White House last week formally nominated two former National Nuclear Security Administration officials to key administration positions at the Pentagon and the Energy Department. One, Robert Hood, was nominated to be assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs. Hood was most recently vice president for government affairs at CH2M, an Energy Department contractor, and […]

Bechtel National earned just over $7 million in fees for its work building the Waste Treatment Plant at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site near Richland Wash.: good for 71 percent of the total available for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2016. DOE grades Bechtel in two major categories: the less-quantifiable project management category, which […]