Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Another possible chemical vapor incident was reported Tuesday at the Hanford Site in Washington state for the first time in five days. This one was different because it was reported about 7 miles away from where previous reports were made. Previous potential exposures in recent weeks were in or near the group of tank farms […]

The Senate on Thursday at last united to pass a fiscal 2017 spending bill with $31 billion for the Department of Energy, but the House cannot even begin floor votes on its own backlog of spending bills until Monday because Congress still has not agreed on overall spending levels for the next budget year. It […]

Uranium fuel supplier Centrus Energy trimmed its losses in the first quarter of 2016, after which it officially began closing down the industrial-scale uranium enrichment demonstration known as the American Centrifuge Plant (ACP) in Piketon, Ohio. The former United States Enrichment Corp. — which ceased enrichment operations in 2013, emerged from bankruptcy in 2014, and […]

Making good on a threat from January, a Santa Fe, N.M., nuclear watchdog group on Thursday sued the Energy Department and the agency’s prime contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in federal court for failing to clean up nuclear waste at the 70 year-old weapons lab. Nuclear Watch New Mexico filed suit in the […]

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee said this week it has easily beaten a September 2018 deadline to ship off 2,247 containers of mixed hazardous and radioactive waste. The project was carried out under the Oak Ridge Reservation Site Treatment Plan under a state order to the Department of Energy, according to a Y-12 […]

The Department of Energy still plans to develop a field research center in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to test new technologies for addressing mercury contamination in the environment, but the federal agency has decided not to construct the facility at the Horizon Center business park because of objections from the city of Oak Ridge. “The City […]

A regional group that supports job creation near the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., was recently given $1 million to help fill future workforce needs at the site. The Department of Energy announced Monday that the grant totals $5 million that will be rationed out over five years. The money falls under the Workforce […]

Engineering giant AECOM’s fiscal second-quarter revenue dipped by 3 percent, from $4.51 billion in 2015 to $4.38 billion this year, according to earnings numbers released Tuesday. Earnings per share landed at $0.27, with adjusted earnings per share up by half on a year-over-year basis, from $0.58 to $0.87. Net income for the three-month period ending […]

Susan Beard, a Department of Energy attorney of more than 25 years nominated in April to become the agency’s next inspector general, had her day in the Senate Thursday, where lawmakers who must consent to her nomination pressed her about the DOE’s Hanford Site: regarded by many as the most challenging cleanup in the entire […]

The current management and operations contract for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has been extended for one year, to fiscal 2018, but will be up for grabs after that. Lab Director Charles McMillan made the announcement at an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal announcement issued Thursday. A formal notice […]

The Department of Energy later this month will lift the curtain a little on its plans for temporarily storing 35 cubic yards of radioactive sludge at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., before disposing of the material permanently. The changes will be detailed in an official document known as an Explanation of Significant Difference for […]

Profits rose at Fluor Corp.’s Government division in the first quarter, and the segment checked in with big wins on major Energy Department cleanup jobs for the period ended March 31, the Irving, Texas-based engineering and construction giant announced late Thursday. The win comes as overall profits in the quarter fell on a weaker performance […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday said it approved changes to an official safety document that lays the groundwork for contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) to reopen the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., and resume nuclear waste disposal in the underground facility after two years spent recovering from a radiation release and […]

BWX Technologies’ (BWXT) said Monday its adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations for the first quarter of 2016 rose 11 cents year over year, to 44 cents a share , with revenue in the period rising 9 percent to about $365 million. On a nonadjusted basis, the now-nuclear-only company posted first-quarter earnings of 46 […]

When lawmakers return to Capitol Hill next week, yet another report proclaiming the fundamental unsoundness of the Energy Department’s proposal to store surplus plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. will greet them. Delivered to the Hill on Thursday, the latest report by Greensboro, Ga.-based High Bridge Associates — the consulting firm […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued its final supplement to the Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain environmental impact statement (EIS) late Thursday, finding the impact to groundwater from any potential spent nuclear fuel leaks and high-level nuclear waste at the planned nuclear waste repository in Nevada would be “small.” DOE submitted its final EIS in 2002, and […]

James Taylor, the former AECOM executive, is now general manager of Bechtel’s global Environmental business line, the company announced in a thursday press release. In his new role, Taylor will lead government and commercial environmental remediation projects worldwide for Bechtel’s Nuclear, Security and Environmental global business unit, the press release said. Taylor, formerly executive vice […]

Hanford Site contractor CH2M Plateau Remediation Co. has earned 95 percent of the available fee for fiscal 2015 and a rating of “excellent,” the Department of Energy announced this week. The contractor, which is responsible for Hanford groundwater and Central Plateau cleanup, earned about $10.6 million of about $10.9 million available. The excellent rating was […]

A manager with Battelle Memorial Institute said Wednesday the company is in final discussions with multiple landowners for a potential borehole field test site in South Dakota, and organizers will hold an additional public meeting next week. After abandoning its original planned test site in North Dakota in the face of public opposition, Battelle is […]

The Savannah River Site’s two largest contractors reported recently that they are focusing on hiring more personnel as a significant number of their workforces near retirement eligibility. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the SRS management and operations contractor, and Savannah River Remediation (SRR), the site’s liquid waste contractor, both gave presentations in April to the […]

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said this week they are each considering steps to hold the Department of Energy accountable at the Hanford Site tank farms. Both visited the Hanford area Thursday, dropping hints at a press conference about what their next steps may be. Ferguson, a Democrat up […]

The story “DOE Close to Figuring Out which Excess Nuclear Facilities to Tear Down First,” [Weapons Complex Monitor, April 22] should have said DOE sub-agencies such as the National Nuclear Security Administration are responsible for maintaining facilities they no longer need for active missions until the Environmental Management office takes over those facilities for cleanup.

The contractor for the Department of Energy’s project to test the feasibility of storing nuclear waste in deep boreholes has run into more opposition, this time in South Dakota, after abandoning its original test site in North Dakota. Battelle Memorial Institute representatives met with residents and officials in Spink County, S.D., on Wednesday and Thursday to […]

With research and development efforts winding down in earnest at the American Centrifuge Plant near the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) made a plea on the Senate floor Tuesday to increase the fiscal 2017 budget for another big Pike County jobs project: an on-site waste-disposal facility. As part of the […]

In fiscal 2015, Energy Department contractor LATA Environmental Services of Kentucky nabbed about 75 percent of its possible award fee, good for just under $2.5 million in the final year of the company’s five-year remediation contract for the Paducah Site in Kentucky. LATA has been officially off the job since its contract, worth just over […]

Portage Inc. on Tuesday laid off 31 employees at the Energy Department’s Moab site in Utah, where the company recently received a follow-on contract for uranium tailings cleanup work, a local public radio station reported. The layoffs leave 80 people on the job at Moab, the station, KUER 90.1, reported. A Portage spokesperson Wednesday declined […]

Senators left Washington for a weeklong recess Friday without passing their fiscal 2017 energy and water spending bill, but the chamber’s Republican leader has vowed to try again on May 9, despite no signs that the partisan strife which prevented a floor vote this week will abate. The bill was cruising toward a vote Wednesday […]