Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Department of Energy and contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership have made strides in updating safety procedures at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., but there are still “significant challenges” to surmount if the facility is to reopen in December as planned, according to a new report from the agency’s Office of Enterprise […]

The Energy Department on Thursday released a draft solicitation for a potentially 10-year cleanup contract at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, which is now undergoing deactivation by Fluor Federal Services. Fluor’s deal, worth $465 million over three years, runs out July 31, 2017, and DOE is looking for a contractor that could be in […]

The lead parent company for Savannah River Remediation (SRR), the Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor, participated last week in a pre-solicitation event attended by parties interested in taking over that work once the current deal expires in June 2017. “AECOM is extremely interested in continuing our success in cleaning up SRS, specifically within the […]

The White House on Thursday announced the nomination of nuclear policy and technology consultant Gail Marcus to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Marcus would presumably replace DNFSB Vice Chairman Jessie Hill Roberson, who has been nominated to fill a vacancy on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Senate has yet to take action on Roberson’s […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) agreed this month to pay the federal government $175,000 after multiple safety incidents, including one that resulted in a pause of all nonessential work, occurred under the company’s watch. Carol Johnson, president of the Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor, signed a consent order on April 22. The document […]

The Department of Energy has been tight-lipped about shipment of Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Project (CEUSP) materials that include a highly radioactive and fissionable U-233/U-235 mix from the Oak Ridge Reservation to the Nevada National Security Site for burial. The Department of Energy carried out extended negotiations with the state of Nevada before it began […]

A dozen workers were evaluated Thursday for possible exposure to chemical vapors during work to empty the Hanford Site double-shell tank with an interior leak and transfer the waste to a sturdier double-shell tank. Pumping to remove waste from Tank AY-102 has been stopped due to the possible vapor issues, according to the Department of […]

The second melter at the Savannah River Site’s (SRS) Defense Waste Processing Facility has now processed twice as much radioactive waste as the plant’s now-retired first melter, according to a press release issued Monday. The facility just over two decades ago began converting high-level radioactive waste stored at the Department of Energy facility in South […]

While nothing is certain in Congress, particularly in an election year, both houses have moved relatively swiftly during the current appropriations process. For the Energy Department, the House got things moving April 12, when its Appropriations energy and water subcommittee marked up a first draft of the fiscal 2017 spending legislation covering DOE. Since then, both the […]

The Senate’s proposal to pile more funding into the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site cleanup program has set the stage for a parochial tug-of-war over the agency’s fiscal 2017 legacy waste-cleanup budget, once House and Senate lawmakers gather to reconcile the differing spending bills they produced this month. The Senate’s proposed increase is for DOE’s Richland […]

Editor’s Note: DOE sub-agencies with excess facilities are required to maintain those facilities until the Environmental Management office assumes responsibility for them. An earlier version of this story said those sub-agencies were not required to pay for this maintenance. A Department of Energy report that will determine which of the agency’s excess nuclear facilities get torn down first […]

One of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s top concerns in the Department of Energy nuclear weapons complex is the potential for a thermal runaway incident in Area G, the hazardous waste storage area at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. Although the risk may be somewhat mitigated by recent measures taken […]

The Energy Department and its contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico could do more to ensure their new safety procedures prevent a repeat of a 2014 radiation release blamed on an improperly packaged drum of contaminated waste, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). “The Department of Energy […]

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth marked a major cleanup milestone at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Pike County, Ohio, taking out the final component of radio-contaminated process gas equipment from the X-326 facility, DOE said Wednesday. Fluor removed the last of more than 7,000 components on March 21, DOE said in a press release. Getting the […]

Battelle Memorial Institute, the Department of Energy contractor that recently abandoned a planned deep borehole nuclear waste storage field test in North Dakota, said Thursday that it is now considering a site in Spink County, S.D. The location would enable the company to explore nuclear waste storage methods in crystalline granite rock, according to a […]

Another senior official has departed the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico as of this week. John Tapia, LANL’s acquisition service management deputy division leader, according to his LinkedIn profile, managed a staff of 150 people with an annual operating budget of $16 million. He is no longer employed by the laboratory after a […]

K-27, the last of five gaseous diffusion plants to be demolished at the government’s Oak Ridge, Tenn., complex, appears to be coming down quicker than any of its predecessors (K-25, K-29, K-31, and K-33). That may be due to lessons learned from earlier demolitions, an increasingly experienced workforce, and/or an unusual period of mild winter […]

Retrieval of waste from the Hanford Site’s oldest double-shell tank resumed Thursday after workers gained some control over the internal leak in the container. As waste was being retrieved from Tank AY-102 early Sunday morning an alarm sounded, indicating the rate of leakage within the tank had increased dramatically. The decades-old tank was being emptied […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) on Monday officially exited a reduced work phase, or deliberate operations, that was implemented after the company wrapped up an operational safety pause last fall. Now, the Savannah River Site management and operations contractor is fully in enhanced operations. Work in enhanced operations is closer to normal operations, but contingencies […]

House and Senate spending bills produced this week would provide more money for legacy nuclear waste cleanup in fiscal 2017 than the White House requested, but quash administration proposals to dispose of weapon-grade plutonium in New Mexico and change the way the Department of Energy funds cleanup of former uranium enrichment sites. DOE’s Office of […]

Spending bills unveiled this week unambiguously torpedoed the White House’s plan to pay for cleanup of former uranium enrichment facilities with new mandatory spending and new fees on commercial nuclear power. The House and Senate proposals differ on how much to spend on these activities in fiscal 2017, but both chambers agreed the White House’s […]

Former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) on Monday laid into a report commissioned by the Department of Energy’s lead MOX fuel facility contractor that questioned the suitability of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant as a storage site for downblended plutonium. In a commentary sent to media outlets, Domenici charged that CB&I AREVA MOX Services is using […]

Bechtel National of San Francisco earned $8.3 million in award fees from the Energy Department for its work last year on the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. — two-thirds of the total possible award, according to a document DOE’s Office of River Protection (ORP) published Monday. Most of the money […]

The Department of Energy is considering appealing U.S. Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson’s order amending the Hanford Site consent decree, according to court documents requesting a transcript of Malouf Peterson’s closed-door discussions with a panel of three technical advisers. The federal agency is analyzing the court order and amended consent decree and believes the record of […]

Parsons said April 8 the Salt Waste Processing Facility it is building at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., received a Secretarial Department of Energy Award for Project Management Improvement on March 23. The award cites the project team’s innovative practices, which “positioned the project for the completion of construction activities ahead of the target date […]

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson wants a faster resolution and no trial in the state’s pursuit of $100 million and the removal of plutonium from the Savannah River Site – both of which are stipulations dating to 2003 when South Carolina agreed to house the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Department […]

The environmental cleanup of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee has taken place over more than three decades, with much of the progress measured by improved water quality in a series of creeks and waterways – including White Oak Creek, which is the main drainage system for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. […]