Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Not yet a year removed from spinning off its power-generation business, 2015 income from continuing operations at the now-nuclear-focused BWX Technologies rose nearly 9 percent year over year in 2015, despite a profit drain associated with the loss of two big contracts in the DOE nuclear enterprise in 2014. Analysts were upbeat about the news, […]

South Carolina’s senior senator exploded at Energy Department officials on Tuesday, demanding to know why nobody has been fired for the White House’s apparent flip-flop on turning 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear plants. “This is what’s wrong with the government!” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) shouted at National Nuclear […]

The same week non-nuclear air contamination halted recovery efforts in parts of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., Energy Department officials in Washington insisted the underground waste storage facility will be ready to reopen by December. On Wednesday, two days after WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) evacuated portions of the facility due […]

Remaining Hanford Costs Tagged at $107.7B The remaining cleanup costs at the Hanford Site plus some limited long-term stewardship come to $107.7 billion, according to the 2016 Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule and Cost Report. The estimate a year ago was $110.2 billion. The report has been a requirement of the Tri-Party Agreement for the last […]

HB Line, a facility that assists the Savannah River Site’s H Canyon facility in processing nuclear materials, is expected to exit a reduced work phase next month as site contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) advances toward resumption of full normal operations. SRNS, the Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor, self-induced an operational safety […]

The Environmental Protection Agency has asked the Department of Energy to prepare a corrective action report by the third week of April after the spread of radioactive contamination was discovered at the Hanford Site following a November windstorm. Some contamination from the 618-10 Burial Ground was found across Route 4, a public road between the […]

At $189 million, the $4 million requested increase for Los Alamos National Laboratory environmental management operations for fiscal 2017 is smaller than some in the state hoped to see. Stakeholders for the Department of Energy facility, including Ryan Flynn, New Mexico environment secretary and the nuclear weapons laboratory’s principal state regulator, were hoping for a […]

A Feb. 12 story in the Weapons Complex Monitor should have said Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has discussed interring 34 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., but has not formally proposed doing so. The story also should have said Moniz told reporters WIPP might begin accepting diluted plutonium shipments […]

New management has been assigned to the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant and work is being rescheduled after continuing safety problems. “Over the past few months, we’ve experienced a number of safety-related events that, while they didn’t cause any serious injury, are unacceptable,” said John Ciucci, president of CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., in a […]

Industry is again girding for a policy fight over a White House proposal to partially fund legacy uranium cleanup in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee with private contributions that professional groups are calling a new tax on nuclear power. At issue is the White House’s request that Congress reauthorize industry payments, via additional charges on domestic utilities, to the Uranium […]

Defense contractor Huntington Ingalls on Thursday reported a slight drop in year-over-year net earnings for its latest quarter but a significant spike in full-year income. Fourth-quarter net income dropped from $52 million in fourth-quarter 2014 to $50 million in the three-month period ending 2015. Conversely, net income rose from $338 million for all of 2014 […]

DOE Oak Ridge Office Management in Flux At least three executive positions – including the top two – are up for grabs at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office in an unusually unsteady management situation. The situation was created by losses at the top of the organization, including the death a year ago of […]

Ohio Lawmakers Call on Feds to Restore American Centrifuge Funding The Ohio House of Representatives on Wednesday officially petitioned the federal government to restore funding the Department of Energy cut last year for a uranium enrichment centrifuge project in Ohio. In House Concurrent Resolution 30, approved with only a single dissenting vote, state lawmakers said “terminating funding […]

Action Plan Developed Following Grouting of SRS Storage Tank An interim action plan that has been developed for Tank 16 at the Savannah River Site highlights what will happen from now until a final remedial action is determined for all of the tanks in the H-Area Tank Farm Operable Unit. Tank 16 is one of […]

Final Hanford Downwinders Case Dismissal Appealed Dismissal of the final claim from the 1991 Hanford Site downwinders litigation has been appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after U.S. Disgtrict Judge William Fremming Nielsen moved to declare all claims resolved and close the case. Nielsen dismissed the claim filed by the estate of […]

The Energy Department said Thursday it will hold the first of eight public meetings on its consent-based nuclear waste siting initiative March 29 in Chicago at the University of Chicago Conference Center. In the eight meetings, DOE will “seek input from the public on designing a fair and effective process for siting the facilities needed […]

New milestones being proposed by the Tri-Party Agreement agencies for central Hanford remediation operations are unprecedented, only extending cleanup and not offering any project acceleration to balance that, according to the Hanford Advisory Board. It has sent a letter of advice to the Department of Energy and its regulators for the Hanford Site – the […]

The Energy Department has decided not to levy any civil penalties on the contractors deemed responsible for a pair of accidents — including a radiation release — that have prevented the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., from accepting new shipments of nuclear waste for the past two years. The decision came […]

AT DOE As part of a broader effort to make a dent in a roughly $20-billion shortfall for uranium cleanup, the White House in its fiscal 2017 budget plan proposed tapping into a $1.6 billion fund that has been gathering dust since 1996. The three-year drawdown of the United States Enrichment Corp. (USEC) Fund would […]

The federal fiscal 2017 budget request unveiled Tuesday proposed a monumental, long-term change for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico: making the facility the final destination for 34 metric tons of diluted weapon-usable plutonium that would arrive sometime in the early 2020s. In the near term, the White House proposed lowering WIPP’s […]

Funding for Environmental Management (EM) missions at the Savannah River Site would increase by about $111 million over current funding levels under President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget plan. The nearly $1.5 billion request includes $822.6 million for the site’s liquid waste program – an uptick from the $783.5 million appropriated in December’s omnibus. The request […]

Savannah River Remediation (SRR) President Stuart MacVean has resigned after more than four years with the company and over a year as president and project manager. MacVean sent a letter to his employees on Thursday with details on his resignation. He will be replaced by Mark Schmitz, the chief operating officer for the Savannah River […]

Amid some hoopla and a few dozen VIP onlookers, workers on Monday began tearing down the historic K-27 Building at the East Tennessee Technology Park. K-27 is the last of five gaseous diffusion plants in the East Tennessee valley that once housed the world’s largest uranium-enrichment complex and provided fuel for early generations of nuclear […]

The state of Washington’s chief overseer for the massive cleanup of the Hanford Site will leave the job this month with a strong sense of accomplishment, but at least a few frustrations as well. Under Jane Hedges’ watch as the state Department of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program manager, the federal government and its contractors have […]

Liquid waste cleanup at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state would see relatively stable funding under the fiscal 2017 budget released Tuesday, while funding for other cleanup in the central region of the nearly 600-square-mile site would tumble by nearly 20 percent. For the Office of River Protection (ORP), which focuses on projects […]

Hanford Site officials plan to pile waste above grade at the massive central Hanford landfill to expand its capacity rather than digging a new waste cell immediately. Plans call for adding another 20 feet of layered waste and soil to the top of the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. Initially, ERDF was planned to stand about […]

An article in the Feb. 9 edition of WC Monitor cited an incorrect amount proposed to be spent in fiscal 2017 for the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste management operations. The amount is $76.3 million. Weapons Complex Monitor regrets the error.  

Washington State Appoints Interim Nuclear Waste Program Chief The Washington State Department of Ecology has named an interim manager of its Nuclear Waste Program starting March 1. Tom Tebb, the manager of Ecology’s Office of Columbia River, will do both jobs until the department permanently fills the position that oversees the state’s regulation of the […]