Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Energy Department has to date spent about $785 million on its Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory, a DOE spokeswoman said, a tally that is more than $200 million over budget. The system’s budget was capped at $571 million in 2010, while a 2006 estimate had said the facility — designed […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) has wasted no time in inviting President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for energy secretary to visit the Hanford Site. Newhouse issued an invitation to former Texas governor Rick Perry in a letter Thursday. Perry, also a former two-time presidential candidate, famously forgot the Department of Energy during a 2011 debate as one […]

The next head of the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management could be a New York attorney who last served DOE in the Office of the General Counsel. Two sources this week said the incoming Donald Trump administration is considering Gary Lavine to head DOE’s $6-billion-a-year Cold War nuclear-cleanup program as assistant secretary for environmental […]

Jeffrey Carswell has been promoted to deputy manager of the Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico, putting an end to talk that one of the leading figures in the agency’s years-long drive to reopen the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) was headed up the road to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Carswell — one […]

The recently reopened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could be ready to accept new shipments of nuclear waste from across the Energy Department’s nuclear complex by May, under an ambitious schedule being discussed internally in Carlsbad, N.M. For that to happen, WIPP prime Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) must bury transuranic waste marooned above ground at the site’s […]

The Energy Department may assess civil penalties against contractors that retaliate against whistleblowers within their ranks, under a new agency rule that goes into effect Jan. 26. The agency released a summary of the final rule late last year in the Federal Register. Senate Democrats from Washington state and Oregon, major stakeholders in the cleanup of the […]

URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) scooped up nearly all of its available award fee for demolition and decommissioning at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee in the six months ended Sept. 30, according to the contractor’s latest award-fee scorecard. During the period just scored, UCOR earned some $3.4 million in fees, good for about 94 […]

The Savannah River Site’s security contractor earned $5.66 million out of a possible $5.92 million, or 95.5 percent, of its performance award fee for fiscal 2016. The Department of Energy highlighted Centerra-Savannah River Site’s efforts in keeping employees safe and cutting costs in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30. Contractors earn award fees each year by […]

A senior official at the Office of River Protection (ORP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state will early next year become deputy manager of the Richland Operations Office (RL) at the Department of Energy facility, according to an announcement Wednesday. Tom Fletcher currently is the DOE assistant manager for start-up, commissioning, and integration of […]

By the time the public comment period closes on the Energy Department’s draft plan for a Defense Waste Repository to house nuclear waste from military programs, the Donald Trump administration may already have decided if it wants DOE to pursue the project. While routinely delivered late in a new president’s first year in office, the […]

The Energy Department is still looking to restrict airborne drones from flying above the Savannah River Site and other “sensitive” facilities, but has not yet filed a request with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). From June 19 to July 22, SRS employees reported 12 drone sightings over key areas of the site. These included: the Mixed […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) has resumed work to empty waste from Hanford Site Tank AY-102 as it faces a March 4, 2017, retrieval deadline under a settlement agreement with Washington state. The Department of Energy’s Hanford tank farm contractor halted work on the tank leaking waste between its two shells this spring to change out […]

Weapons Complex Monitor will not be published next week in observance of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Jan. 6, 2017.

Cartridge filters performed within an acceptable range in testing of their potential use to protect workers against chemical vapors from radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to a preliminary evaluation of the trial. However, Stoneturn Consultants, which wrote the preliminary report, said more testing is needed. Workers now are required to […]

AECOM’s contract to demolish an Energy Department experimental plutonium facility that operated in the 1950s was set to expire Wednesday, with demolition of the site’s two main buildings expected to stretch into next summer. The Energy Department was expected to extend AECOM’s deactivation, demolition, and removal of facilities contract at the Separations Research Process Unit (SPRU) […]

The site tour and pre-soliciation conference for the Department of Energy’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) technical assistance contract last week drew at least 42 attendees representing more than 30 organizations. The department on Dec. 1 issued a draft request for proposals for the contract, which would cover services for the Utah cleanup site including records […]

A new $3 billion modification for the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant project makes clear the Energy Department and contractor Bechtel National intend to meet their 2022 schedule for beginning liquid-waste treatment, without closing the door on a legally authorized delay into 2023. For years, Bechtel and DOE have said the facility the company is building […]

Veolia Nuclear Solutions has completed a technology demonstration for disposal of radioactive contaminated reactive metal waste. The company demonstrated the GeoMelt In-Container Vitrification process under contract to the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL), according to a Veolia press release. The company carried out the demonstration melts in August and September of this year at a test […]

The Department of Energy announced Friday that it had given approval for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico to resume waste storage operations after nearly three years. The initial waste emplacement should be carried out next month following final, limited ground control operations, DOE said. The announcement comes a week after the New […]

A news brief in the Dec. 9 issue of Weapons Complex Monitor (“At Hanford: Hanford ORP Names New Deputy Manager”) should have said Washington Closure Hanford was previously the Energy Department’s prime contractor for river-corridor cleanup at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash.

  Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) received $39.2 million, or 87 percent, of its annual award fee for fiscal 2016 from the Department of Energy – a total amount earned for both its Environmental Management (EM) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) missions. The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor could have earned up […]

A federal judge has partially dismissed claims that the Savannah River Site’s primary contractor, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), and one of its parent companies, Fluor Federal Services (FFS), unjustly benefited from their contract with the Department of Energy. On March 18, the U.S. Department of Justice sued SRNS, the management and operations contractor for […]

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team this week drew a snarl from one of the Senate’s top nuclear policymakers, who vowed to keep a close eye on the incoming administration’s demand that the Energy Department provide target budget and staffing levels its national nuclear cleanup programs. “I intend to closely follow the transition process at the […]

The Hanford Advisory Board is asking the Department of Energy to increase its budget to allow more meetings, including sessions around the Pacific Northwest. The federally chartered 32-seat board is tasked with offering advice on key Hanford Site cleanup issues to DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Washington state Ecology Department. It includes […]

At the last minute Dec. 9, after deadline for last week’s issue of Weapons Complex Monitor, the Senate passed a stopgap spending bill that will keep the federal government open and funded at fiscal 2016 levels through April 28. An earlier stopgap bill, known officially as a continuing resolution, was set to expire at midnight […]

BWXT Conversion Services fared well and Restoration Services Inc. fared better, but Fluor Federal Services hit a skid and netted only half of its latest possible award fee, according to a raft of contract scorecards released recently by the Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. Restoration Services earned 96 percent of a possible $397,054 award fee […]

Bechtel National defended its progress on construction of the crucial Waste Treatment Plant at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state following a Tuesday Twitter strike from a local nuclear watchdog. The sharply critical Hanford Challenge on Tuesday chided Bechtel for earning a “failing grade” on its work on the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) in […]

Western states must be given a say in any decisions to establish an interim storage facility for radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel within their borders, the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) said in a new policy resolution this week. “In the event that centralized interim storage, either private or federal, is deemed necessary, no such […]