Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/9/2015 Officials are seeking a $27 million plus-up over President Barack Obama’s original fiscal 2016 request for nuclear materials funding within the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), according to an Oct. 5 internal email obtained by WC Monitor that was sent from Savannah River Site (SRS) Office of Integration […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/9/2015 Top Officials Say Dilution and Disposal Cheaper, More Practical Future costs and risks to build the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility are significantly greater than those associated with a dilute-and-dispose approach for 34 metric tons of excess U.S. weapon-grade plutonium, according to the executive summary of the second phase of […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/9/2015 The Senate on Wednesday voted 70-27 to pass the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2016, following an Oct. 1 House vote of 270-156 to pass the bill. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the bill because of language that pluses up his fiscal 2016 […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 10/9/2015 The last claims in the Hanford Site downwinder lawsuit filed in 1991 have been settled or withdrawn, according to documents filed this week in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. As many as 5,000 people, according to defense attorneys, had joined the case, claiming their health was damaged by radiation […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 10/9/2015 Washington River Protection Solutions has begun operating an exhauster to evaporate liquid from Tank T-111, the Hanford Site single-shell tank that is leaking waste into the soil beneath it. “The exhauster is performing as we hoped it would,” said Mark Lindholm, WRPS acting president and project manager, in a statement. […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/9/2015 Washington Closure Hanford is scheduled next week to start leveling the last standing facility marked for demolition as part of the company’s River Corridor Cleanup project, specifically in the Hanford Site’s 300 Area, WCH President Scott Sax said last week during the Energy Department’s first National Cleanup Workshop in Arlington, […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/9/2015 The Los Alamos National Laboratory will likely reach its transuranic waste storage capacity in “approximately” fiscal 2017, according to a recently released Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report. TRU waste storage areas include Area G, Technical Area 55, and the yet-to-be-completed Transuranic Waste Facility, according to the Aug. 14 report. […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 10/9/2015 A report on risk-based management of Department of Energy defense cleanup sites fails to recognize the role of local communities in defining risk and their critical place in making decisions on remediation, according to the Energy Communities Alliance. The organization, which represents communities near DOE cleanup sites across the nation, […]

NS&D Monitor 10/9/2015 Lab Workers Approve New Contract Unionized workers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Wednesday ratified a new five-year labor contract, which includes pay raises in each of the years and a $1,000 signing bonus. Steve Jones, president of the Atomic Trades and Labor Council, confirmed approval of the contract with UT-Battelle, the […]

WC Monitor 10/9/2015 Bechtel Awards Quality Control Services Subcontract at Hanford Bechtel National has awarded NV5 Holdings an estimated $1.5 million contract to support nuclear cleanup at the Hanford Site, NV5 announced on Monday. The company provides professional and technical engineering and consulting services, and will perform quality control field and laboratory testing and construction […]

NS&D Monitor 10/9/2015 EM Commits to Competing LANL Cleanup Contract The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management on Oct. 2 officially announced that it intends to open for competition the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s post-fiscal 2016 nuclear cleanup contract, after Los Alamos National Security’s $309.8 million “bridge” contract will expire sometime between October 2016 […]

NS&D Monitor 10/9/2015 IN THE INDUSTRY BWX Technologies (BWXT) announced this week that Rex Geveden will become the company’s chief operating officer later this month. Starting Oct. 26, Geveden will execute BWXT’s government and commercial nuclear operations in the U.S. and Canada, the contractor said. Geveden most recently served as executive vice president at Teledyne […]

WC Monitor 10/2/2015   DOE Conducts Aerial Radiological Survey at Hanford The Department of Energy has completed an aerial radiological survey of the 37 square miles at the center of the Hanford Site in Washington. A National Security Technologies helicopter equipped with sensors flew low over the area, collecting information on 100-foot-wide sections of land […]

Jeremy L. Dillon WC Monitor 10/2/2015 Parsons anticipates finalizing construction of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Savannah River Site by April 2016 at a total cost of $475 million, Project Manager Frank Sheppard said this week at the Department of Energy’s National Cleanup Workshop in Arlington, Va. That would bring the project […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/2/2015 The Savannah River National Laboratory this week restarted non-nuclear, solid waste management, and tritium operations, after 400 grams of plutonium placed in a container not marked for transport forced site contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions on Sept. 3 to shut down all of its nonessential nuclear and non-nuclear operations, SRNS […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 10/2/2015 Work began this week to demolish the vertical pipe units at Hanford’s high-hazard 618-10 Burial Ground. Remediation of the burial ground and the similar 618-11 Burial Ground have been left for last in Hanford’s river corridor to let workers gain experience with other burial grounds that were expected to be […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/2/2015 Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on Tuesday reaffirmed his department’s belief that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is on track to reopen by the end of next year. His statement came two months after DOE acknowledged that it would not be possible to resume operations at the […]

Senate to Vote on Bill Next Week   Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/2/2015 The House of Representatives yesterday passed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2016 yesterday by a vote of 270-156, and the Senate plans to vote on its version of the bill next week, in the face of a threatened veto from […]

Brian Bradley and Jeremy Dillon WC Monitor 10/2/2015 Congress this week passed a continuing resolution that will fund the federal government through Dec. 11 at fiscal 2015-enacted levels and avoids a government shutdown. The CR gives Congress an additional 10 weeks to work toward a budget solution, but with uncertainty in the House following Speaker […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 10/2/2015 The Department of Energy this week transferred 1,641 acres of largely undeveloped land at the Hanford Site in Washington state to the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC), its community reuse organization. The acreage  is less than 0.5 percent of the total Hanford land and is in an area designated by the […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 10/2/2015 Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site treated a record 2.1 billion gallons of groundwater in the last year, exceeding the last record of 1.9 billion gallons in fiscal 2014 during ongoing cleanup at the former plutonium production facility, DOE said yesterday in a press release. “We’re treating more […]

WC Monitor 10/2/2015   DOE Schedules Industry Day for SRS Liquid Waste Services Contract The Department of Energy on Tuesday said it had scheduled an industry day for its Savannah River Site liquid waste services contract for Wednesday, Oct. 14, at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Augusta in Augusta, Ga. The session is scheduled to […]

WC Monitor 10/2/2015   DOE Awards Support Services Contract to Small Business Sigma Science Inc., of Los Alamos, N.M., has received a $4 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract with a five-year ordering period to provide technical support services to the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office, DOE announced on Wednesday. […]

WC Monitor 10/2/2015 DOE Investigating Problems With Hanford Electronic Medical System The Department of Energy Office of Enforcement has notified Computer Sciences Corp. that it plans to investigate alleged problems with the electronic medical system being implemented at Hanford when CSC held the site’s occupational medicine contract. It also will consider taking enforcement action for […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 9/25/2015 As with other Department of Energy sites impacted by the ongoing suspension of operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the shipments of transuranic waste at Oak Ridge have been placed on hold – although processing and certification of wastes continue. The situation in Tennessee is complicated […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 9/25/2015 Savannah River Nuclear Solutions President and CEO Carol Johnson on Tuesday said 400 grams of plutonium placed in a container not marked for transport forced the Sept. 3 shutdown of the company’s nonessential operations at the Savannah River Site. The amount of material involved was not previously released. According to […]

Brian Bradley WC Monitor 9/25/2015 A proposed three-month federal continuing resolution released this week could head off hundreds of layoffs among workers on the cleanup project at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Piketon, Ohio. The Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday issued the federal funding plan to keep the federal government open when fiscal 2016 […]