Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 2/9/2016 The Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 budget proposal, released Tuesday, lays out an aggressive funding plan to enact a nuclear waste management program to replace the Yucca Mountain deep geologic repository in Nevada. The money is to be used for the department’s phased, adaptive, consent-based approach to finding permanent storage for […]

WC Monitor 2/9/2016 The White House on Tuesday proposed a fiscal 2017 budget that would clear the way to send tons of diluted, weapon-usable plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico and shrink the energy the Energy Department’s legacy nuclear-waste cleanup budget by just over 2 percent to about $6.1 billion. […]

As part of a policy blitz aimed at paving the way to send some 40 tons of diluted plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the White House’s fiscal 2017 budget request will slash funding for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in Aiken, S.C., according to an informed source. The Mixed […]

WC Monitor 2/05/2016 WIPP Versus MOX Debate Continues in New Mexico Paper An op-ed debate over storing diluted plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) continued over the weekend, with an executive from a consulting firm that authored a 2015 study backing an alternative disposal method arguing against interment at the Carlsbad, N.M. facility. […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 2/5/2016 The corrective action program at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant needs further improvements, despite past work on the program, according to an audit report released Thursday by the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General. Bechtel National implemented initiatives in August 2014 to address issues with the vitrification plant […]

WC Monitor 2/5/2016 Kacich to Take Over Management of LANL Legacy Cleanup Richard Kacich, who was appointed deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in November, on Feb. 8 will become the top manager for the lab’s legacy waste cleanup contract with the Energy Department, according to an internal memo.  “In addition to […]

Fluor Idaho has received a five-year, cost-plus Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP) Core contract worth up to $1.4 billion for legacy waste cleanup work at the Idaho National Laboratory, the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) said Thursday. Work will take place at DOE EM’s Idaho Site some 50 miles west of Idaho Falls. The […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 2/5/2016 A federal judge late last week closed the 1991 downwinder case filed against five early Hanford Site contractors, after declining to allow a final claim to be heard. Judge William Fremming Nielsen indicated in October that he was ready to close the case and ordered anyone who could show cause […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 2/5/2016 The Department of Energy Office of River Protection (ORP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state has developed a list of 529 vulnerabilities in the design of the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, all of which it says can be addressed. The list was developed after ORP commissioned […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 2/5/2016 The Savannah River Site’s salt waste contractor announced Wednesday that it laid off 123 workers as construction of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) nears 95 percent completion. In a brief statement, Frank Sheppard, Parsons vice president and SWPF program manager, said construction will be completed in the spring, so […]

The Department of Energy’s plan to conduct a feasibility study for deep-borehole storage of high-level radioactive waste has been put on hold in North Dakota, as the Pierce County Commission this week placed a moratorium on drilling amid growing concern from area residents. The estimated five-year, $35 million project, proposed across 20 acres of state […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 2/5/2016 Local government leaders near the Hanford Site have some advice for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee as he picks a new state Nuclear Waste Program manager: choose carefully at this critical time in Hanford cleanup. Jane Hedges, who served in the position for a decade, announced in early November that she […]

Dan Leone WC Monitor 2/5/2016 It is now safe for workers to enter certain areas of the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., without wearing air-filtering respirators, the Energy Department said Jan. 29. Personnel more than 2,520 feet south of WIPP’s northernmost tip — an access corridor where no waste is stored, […]

WC Monitor 2/05/2016 Lawmaker Seeks Full FY17 Funding for Hanford Richland Operations Office Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) is urging President Barack Obama to request full funding for the Hanford Site’s Richland Operations Office when the administration’s fiscal 2017 appropriations request is released on Feb. 9. Last year the administration proposed a $93 million funding cut […]

WC Monitor 2/05/2016 UCOR Selects New COO Oak Ridge Reservation cleanup contractor URS CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) on Tuesday said a recently retired manager is returning to the company as chief operating officer. Fran Williams will succeed Matt Marston, who left UCOR in January to take a high-level job with URS parent company AECOM. Prior […]

WC Monitor 1/29/2016 SRNS to Address Attrition With 2,000 Hirings in Coming Years Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) is looking to address its attrition problem over the next few years by hiring 2,000 workers with the help of partnerships with colleges and universities near the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.  SRNS, the site’s management and […]

WC Monitor 1/29/2016 IEI-PEC, JV, of Lincoln, Neb., has received an indefinite-quantity, indefinite-delivery support services contracts from the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management worth up to $4 million over four years, DOE announced Thursday. Most of the work will take place at DOE EM headquarters in Washington and its Germantown, Md., satellite office, the […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/29/2016 The primary ownership of Hanford Site contractor Mission Support Alliance would transfer from Lockheed Martin to the engineering firm Leidos under a deal struck between the two international companies. Leidos Holdings entered into a definitive agreement with Lockheed Martin this week to merge with Lockheed’s realigned Information Systems and Global […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/29/2016 Neither the Department of Energy nor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) has come up with a dollar value for the cost of last year’s SRNS operational safety pause on all nonessential missions. SRNS, the Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor, initiated the safety pause in September after a plutonium sample headed […]

Dan Leone WC Monitor 1/29/2016 A $74 million settlement finalized with the Energy Department last week has cleared the way for New Mexico to overhaul the rules governing the Department of Energy’s nuclear waste cleanup at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Legally, the settlement resolves civil penalties the state levied on DOE related to an underground […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/29/2016 The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is planning one or more hearings in New Mexico around March to address issues with the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Area G, Doug Hintze, manager of the Department of Energy’s Environmental Field Office at the lab said on Wednesday. “We’ve been informed by […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/29/2016 The attorney for the first downwinder claim for radioactive exposure from the Hanford Site in Washington state has objected to a proposal to close the case, saying his client lacks resolution 28 years after filing a claim. It is the only claim to be put forth after U.S. Judge William […]

WC Monitor 1/29/2016 Hanford Guards Approve New Contract The Hanford Guards Union voted Tuesday to approve a proposed contract agreement with Mission Support Alliance. The contract would have expired at the end of October but has been extended three times as negotiations have continued. “We have a long-standing relationship with the guard and greatly value […]

Dan Leone WC Monitor 1/29/2016 The Department of Energy plans to complete installation of an interim ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility near Carlsbad, N.M., in March or April, another milestone required to reopen the underground transuranic waste-storage facility by December, a DOE official said Thursday. The ventilation installation was mentioned […]

WC Monitor 1/29/2016 Fluor Marks First Paducah Demolition of 2016 Department of Energy contractor Fluor Paducah Deactivation Project already in 2016 has demolished the first of 12 inactive facilities to be razed soon at the former gaseous diffusion plant near Paducah, Ky., the DOE Office of Environmental Management Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office announced Tuesday. The C-746-B […]

Dan Leone WC Monitor 1/22/2016 Nuclear Watch New Mexico said this week it intends to sue the Energy Department and contractor Los Alamos National Security in federal court for blowing a cleanup deadline at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Under a legally binding 2005 consent order between DOE, the New Mexico Environment Department, and […]

WC Monitor 1/22/2016 Grouting Begins for SRS Tank 12 A three-month process has begun to grout and close Tank 12 at the Savannah River Site, continuing a longstanding effort to rid South Carolina of more than 30 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste. SRS announced Tuesday that its liquid waste contractor, Savannah River Remediation (SRR), […]