Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Six environmental groups have sued the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over approval of a new low-level radioactive waste landfill at DOE’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, according to a press release from the groups. The case has […]

Robert (Bob) Alvarez, a former Senate staffer, 1990s Department of Energy official and nuclear watchdog, died July 1 following a years-long battle with Parkinson’s disease at age 78.  The Institute for Policy Studies and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published remembrances of Alvarez in recent days.  Among other things, Alvarez worked on the Senate […]

Brian Vance, the Department of Energy’s former manager of nuclear cleanup at the Hanford Site in Washington state is the new site leader at the Framatome nuclear fuel plant in Richland, Wash. The Tri-City Herald reported Monday Vance started working as a manager for the Framatome fuel manufacturing plant July 9. The company subsequently confirmed […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office could issue a draft solicitation as early as next month for a contractor to perform landlord services at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The draft request for proposals (RFP)  for the Portsmouth Infrastructure Support Services could be issued in August, the DOE Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center in […]

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday said the White House can go ahead with plans for major layoffs and restructuring of the federal government while legal challenges play out, according to media reports. The Washington Post  and other media outlets reported Tuesday afternoon that the high court elected not to block planning for mass layoffs at […]

Crews at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) are expected to double-stack 300 canisters of vitrified high level waste this fiscal year ending Sept. 30.  That figure would continue a decade-long mission that is conserving space at the South Carolina complex, according to the DOE.    To date, liquid waste contractor BWX Technologies-led Savannah […]

The Department of Energy’s underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste is still well behind its shipment rate from before a major accident in 2014, but things are gradually rebounding, according to the Government Accountability Office. “According to DOE officials, WIPP [the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.] had been receiving as many as […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Timothy Walsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, or EM-1, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Wednesday his military and business background has prepared him to lead the world’s largest nuclear cleanup. An Army veteran and company commander in the 82nd Airborne Division […]

The final version of the budget reconciliation package signed into law July 4 by President Donald Trump includes a long-sought bipartisan proposal to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). “After nearly two years of negotiations—and two separate passages of RECA packages by the Senate in 2023 and 2024,” the RECA expansion was included in […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has asked the Department of Energy for a briefing on plans to refurbish an old shaft and hoist relied upon for emergency evacuation of underground workers at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). “Despite long-standing recognition of underlying problems, age-related degradation and technical obsolescence issues with the shafts […]

Montreal-based AtkinsRéalis said recently Chief Operating Office Philip Hoare is leaving the company this summer to pursue other opportunities and his exit leads to the return of a former AtkinsRéalis executive. On Aug. 23, Louis Véronneau will return to AtkinsRéalis and succeed Hoare as chief operating officer, the company announced in a June 17 press […]

Several publicly-traded companies doing business within the Department of Energy weapons complex are scheduled to report earnings in the coming weeks. Here is a rundown of currently scheduled earnings releases and conference calls.  July 31: Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News, Va., will report its second quarter earnings results, the company said in a press release. […]

Sixteen single-wide office trailers in the 100-K area of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site at Richland, Wash., have been torn down, DOE said Tuesday. Hundreds of engineers and other staff at the former plutonium production complex near the Columbia River have worked at the office trailer complex since 2000, DOE said in a Tuesday […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public online meeting on June 26 to take comments on closure plans for the Calcined Solids Storage Facility at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. “Calcine is a solid, granular waste form produced through the calcination of liquid radioactive waste resulting, in part, from spent nuclear fuel (SNF) […]

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright this week announced Department of Energy plans to end what he calls “permitting paralysis” under the National Environmental Policy Act. Wright announced the changes, which are in line with a prior executive order by President Donald Trump, in a July 2 press release. DOE published an interim final rule rescinding […]

If things don’t change by mid-October, what is designed to be a five-person safety panel for Department of Energy sites could be down to one member. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) currently has only two members, Acting Chair Thomas Summers and board member Patricia Lee. Summers was confirmed by the Senate in July […]

The Government Accountability Office, which serves as Congress’s watchdog over federal programs, would see its budget nearly cut by nearly half in fiscal 2026, under a bill advanced by the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday. The Legislative Appropriation Act for fiscal 2026, which passed through the committee Thursday 34-to-28, provides  $415.4 million for the Government […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said June 17 it has removed waste from two more radioactive waste tanks at the 310-square-mile facility near the Georgia state line. Tanks 11 and 15 are the fourth and fifth waste tanks in 12 months to meet the “preliminary cease waste removal” designation, DOE’s […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico received 53 defense-related transuranic waste shipments in May, based on revised figures. DOE revised the figures on its public website for WIPP around June 27 after learning the website initially failed to update and record the 24 shipments that took place between May […]

Paul Dabbar, a Department of Energy executive during the first Donald Trump administration, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate 56-to-40 Wednesday as Deputy Secretary of Commerce. Dabbar was undersecretary of energy for science during the first Trump administration. As part of that position during the first term, Dabbar had authority over the Office of Environmental […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch has awarded a potential five-year $85-million technical services contract to a team led by South Carolina-based Catawba Engineering and Environmental Services. The consolidated Technical Support Services contract for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management has been won by Catawba TEAPEC, a small business venture made up of Catawba and […]

The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority to license consolidated interim storage, clears the way for Holtec to move forward on a spent fuel storage site in New Mexico, according to the company. At the same time, however, Holtec said last week major issues remain to be worked out both […]

Energy Secretary Chris Wright used an appearance before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week to plead for the upper chamber to confirm more DOE nominees. “If I can ask one thing for the whole senate is please help confirm my people,” Wright said during a hearing last week on the DOE budget […]

Nobody was hurt last month when a four-foot broken slab of concrete fell 1,400-feet down a utility shaft at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., according to a safety board report. Likewise, no equipment was damaged in the May 27 incident that happened while a subcontractor crew from Harrison […]

Half of the key assets the Department of Energy needs to dispose of defense-related transuranic waste in a New Mexico salt mine were in “substandard or inadequate condition in 2023,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Tuesday. In a report to congressional committees, GAO said DOE’s Office of Environmental Management should do a better job […]

A BWX Technologies-led joint venture took over this week as the new remediation contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project in Western New York. The four-month management transition started in February and ended Tuesday for West Valley Cleanup Alliance (WCVA), Jason Casper, the president and project manager of the alliance said during a Citizens Task […]

The Department of Energy’s former tank waste contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state this week agreed to pay $6.5 million to the feds to settle a fraud case brought by a whistleblower. The Justice Department settlement with Amentum-led contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) was announced Tuesday in a press release by Acting […]