Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Hanford Site website for chemical vapors information has been expanded and given a new address, www.hanfordvapors.com, to make information easier to find. The website was launched in early June as part of the Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) internet pages to make more information publicly available about chemical vapors associated with waste held in […]

Broken pumps that transfer sludge waste from the Savannah River Site’s (SRS) Defense Waste Processing Facility back into the site’s H Area Tank Farm are being replaced with used pumps from the site’s F Area Tank Farm, the Energy Department and prime SRS liquid waste cleanup contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) announced Wednesday. The joint […]

The story “Waste Control Specialists Waiting on Permission to Keep LANL Waste in Texas,” (Vol. 27, No. 26) should have said that by the time the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) closed in 2014, the Energy Department had removed about 4,500 cubic yards of above-ground transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory’a (LANL) Area G, most […]

The Energy Department this week put in place just over $15 million in funding to support administrative tasks within various state governments necessary to resume shipments of radio-contaminated material and equipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. The move, announced in a pair of press releases, represents a small but necessary bit of groundwork that greases the […]

Data from a qualified, independent agency may be needed to resolve concerns over chemical vapors at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a former top site manager said Thursday at a union hall forum to discuss the situation. The forum in Pasco – organized by Hanford Challenge, Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598, and state […]

A federal judge on Thursday heard arguments for motions in South Carolina’s multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Department of Energy over plutonium processing at the Savannah River Site, but gave no indication how or when she might rule on the requests. The federal government is seeking immediate dismissal of the state lawsuit demanding $100 million and […]

The Energy Department on Thursday inched closer toward a procurement for a facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex for treatment of mercury-contaminated water. The agency dropped its request for information late Thursday, asking companies to submit capabilities statements for building the facility described in a 30-page statement of work the agency released along with its request. […]

New Mexico and the Energy Department have formally agreed on the campaign-style approach the federal agency must follow for an estimated 19-year legacy waste-cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), making official a document the state believes — despite deep grass-roots skepticism from some quarters — will persuade Congress to open the funding taps. The 2016 consent order finalized […]

The Department of Energy is seeking bids on an estimated 10-year, $4 billion-$6 billion liquid cleanup contract at the Savannah River Site (SRS), in a long-awaited procurement that hit the street late Thursday that includes the permanent disposal of millions of tons of salt waste at the Aiken, S.C., facility. The department currently envisions an eight-year […]

In an eventful week for the Hanford Site tank farms, unions issued a list of demand for better worker protection against chemical vapors and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) agreed to conduct a safety and health evaluation of the chemical vapors situation. On Monday, the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council (HAMTC) […]

The New Mexico Environment Department on Thursday joined the Energy Department and one of its contractors as a defendant in a lawsuit filed in May by the advocacy group Nuclear Watch New Mexico. The group’s lawsuit alleges the federal agency owes the state millions of dollars after it blew a 2015 deadline to clean up a large cache of Cold […]

Scientists at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina are calling for more research to understand why mercury is being produced in tributaries that flow into the Savannah River waterways and how the environment is impacted when that mercury discharges into the river itself. During a June 8 presentation to a committee of the SRS […]

Waste Control Specialists said this week the legacy nuclear waste it is baby-sitting for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory — including some from the problematic batch that leaked radiation into the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) — should remain in Texas for two years longer than the company’s current license allows. […]

The union representing federal workers at the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) in Washington, D.C., wants face-to-face meetings with senior DOE leaders about a planned reorganization that would bring nine field offices around the country under the supervision of a single, Washington-based manager. The National Treasury Employees Union [NTEU] “is requesting direct face-to-face negotiations […]

A worker lost part of his finger during routine maintenance of the Advanced Test Reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, according to a notice the Department of Energy posted online. The cause was a loop of wire the worker ran through the shaft of a drill socket, which was affixed to a handheld drill. As […]

A U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday denied the Department of Energy’s request for a delay in proceedings for South Carolina’s multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the federal agency. DOE had requested that Judge J. Michelle Childs postpone a June 30 hearing on the state’s request for summary judgment in the civil case charging DOE with failing […]

The Department of Energy and Savannah River Site held a ribbon cutting on Tuesday to formally celebrate completion of the South Carolina site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF). The facility will process the salt waste that is stored in SRS storage tanks and send the cesium and actinide portions of the waste to the site’s […]

The Department of Energy’s first open industry briefing for the estimated $1.7 billion contract that covers up to 10 years of legacy nuclear cleanup work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) drew a crowd of nearly 150 earlier this month, but the partners for incumbent Los Alamos National Security (LANS) kept a low profile, […]

Electrical work still tops a list of construction-related concerns at the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) contractor Bechtel National is building at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, according to a Friday report from the agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA). “Electrical construction weaknesses were identified with completed wiring installations that did not […]

Despite a few hiccups, workers at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., are generally adhering well to stricter maintenance procedures and requirements established after the 2014 accidents that have kept the nation’s only transuranic waste-disposal facility closed for more than two years, according to a report the Energy Department’s Office of Enterprise […]

The Department of Energy has completed only five of the 13 steps in a complex-wide emergency preparedness implementation plan the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recommended the department start work on more than two years ago, according to a recently published letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. The letter is the latest to be made public […]

The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday it has at last wrapped up a review of whether the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) nuclear waste facility complied with federal environmental regulations from 2012 to 2014. The review began a few months after the February 2014 underground fire and later, unrelated radiation release that have closed WIPP to […]

Storing transuranic waste in certain containers near the border of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) campus may be riskier than site management believes, according to a report released late Friday by the Energy Department’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA). EA personnel visited the Livermore, Calif., lab’s Building 332 Plutonium Facility and Waste Storage Facility from […]

Registration is open for the ExchangeMonitor’s newly revamped Global Environmental Management Forum & Showcase, formerly the Decisionmakers’ Forum. The event, scheduled for Nov. 1-3 at the Omni Shoreham in Washington, D.C., will offer decision makers in the nuclear industry an opportunity to discuss new markets and new technologies being developed to reduce nuclear dangers and […]

The Department of Energy would do well to reduce the number of cleanup contractors at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to the Hanford Advisory Board. It prepared advice at its June 9 meeting intended to help DOE provide the best value for taxpayers, improve workforce safety, reduce workforce stress due to contract changes, […]

The Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site continues to live up to its billing as the most dangerous and complicated cleanup at the former plutonium production facility near Richland, Wash., with a government watchdog disclosing Wednesday some close calls involving one of the plant’s radio-contaminated glove boxes. Difficulties with the facility’s last […]

Environmental regulators, the city of Oak Ridge, Tenn., and community activists have pushed the Department of Energy to explore more alternatives before choosing a definitive site for a new CERCLA landfill for disposal of hazardous and radioactive wastes generated during cleanup projects at the Oak Ridge Reservation. The department had previously put its eggs in […]

The Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant was immediately evacuated Thursday morning when a criticality alarm sounded. Hanford officials confirmed 90 minutes later that it was a false alarm related to maintenance being conducted on the alarm system that morning. The cause of the false alarm is being investigated. The alarm is designed to warn workers […]