Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Savannah River Site officials still don’t know who is behind the flying drones that have been spotted above the 310-square-mile facility near Aiken, S.C. There have been eight confirmed sightings of drones flying over the Department of Energy facility, with the most recent reported on Tuesday. “We continue to partner with federal, state, and local […]

Washington River Protection Solutions has offered to move work shifts in the Hanford Site tank farms to the Department of Energy facility’s Thursday-evening-through-Monday-morning weekend shifts or to night shifts in response to union demands. Fewer workers are on site during those hours to be exposed to possible chemical vapors. Mark Lindholm, president of the tank […]

As the Energy Department mulls how much of its legacy transuranic waste will have to be repackaged under the stricter new Waste Acceptance Criteria that went into effect at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) this week, the agency is quietly buying itself more time to deal with the problematic waste that caused the plant’s […]

About 45 non-manual workers at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant will be told next week that their jobs are ending anytime from late August through October. The layoffs are part of a change in the mix of workers needed as the vitrification plant project “is reaching a transition point as we drive toward completing the […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) is seeking a dismissal of a federal lawsuit accusing the contractor and one of its parent companies of overcharging the government more than $5 million in “unallowable costs.” In papers filed on May 20, SRNS said the Department of Justice misused the Federal Claims Act in filing its lawsuit, and […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) has cleaned up a small mercury and tritium spill at the Savannah River Site’s Solid Waste Management Facility and is preparing the waste for disposition, a spokesperson for the Energy Department’s contractor said Friday. The spill was discovered by SRNS personnel during a routine walk of the Solid Waste Management […]

The final request for proposals for a contract to haul radio-contaminated material and equipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., will be released this month, no sooner than Sunday, the Energy Department said. The new WIPP Transportation Services contract will be a five-year, fixed-price, indefinite-quantity, indefinite-delivery deal. The pact will replace a pair […]

A subcontractor at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) broke a finger June 15 while performing routine maintenance on a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system at the lab’s Energy Innovation Laboratory, an Energy Department spokesperson at the Idaho Falls facility said Monday. It was the second work accident involving a worker’s hand at Idaho in June — […]

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 […]