Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

At Least Two Bidders Going After Job Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/17/2015 With a little less than a month to go before bids are due for the new Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP) Core contract, it appears that the Department of Energy will see some competition for the job. At least two bidders are believed to […]

House Appropriators Also Move to Increase Hanford Budget Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/17/2015 As House Appropriators this week moved to boost funds for the Portsmouth site, Department of Energy Portsmouth Paducah Project Office Manager Bill Murphie emphasized the need for a stable funding level at Portsmouth. Cleanup funding at Portsmouth has been impacted by both […]

Board Vice Chair Roberson, Though, Says Judgement May be ‘Premature’ Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/17/2015 Members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board appear to be divided over whether or not the Department of Energy is making improvements in improving the safety culture at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant and across the DOE complex. In […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/17/2015 Waste Isolation Pilot Plant M&O contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership earned only 7 percent of its available fee in Fiscal Year 2014 after incidents shut down the repository, for a total of $561,266 out of $8.2 million in maximum fee available, according to recently released fee information. WIPP was shut down […]

Jeremy L. Dillon WC Monitor 4/17/2015 House lawmakers are seeking more definitive answers from the Department of Energy regarding its decision to separate commercial and defense high-level radioactive waste into two repositories, sending a letter Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz this week. Following the Department’s announcement last month that it planned to “de-comingle” the two […]

Former Hanford Supervisor Sentenced in Time Card Fraud Case WC Monitor 4/17/2015 A former Hanford supervisor was sentenced this week to 30 days incarceration, three months of home detention and a fine of $34,146 after pleading guilty to timecard fraud. Daniel Niebuhr was the first defendant to be sentenced in Hanford cases related to timecard […]

Advisory Panel Calls for Conservative Approach for Central Area Cleanup WC Monitor 4/17/2015 The Hanford Advisory Board is recommending that the Department of Energy take a conservative approach as it prepares to make plans to clean up the innermost 10 square miles of Hanford. Unlike much of the rest of the 586 square miles of […]

Los Alamos Issues Sources Sought for Chromium Injection Wells WC Monitor 4/17/2015 Los Alamos National Laboratory is seeking companies able to drill and install six groundwater wells as part of a pump-and-treat system to address the Lab’s chromium groundwater plume, according to a sources sought notice posted this week. The subcontract award is expected to […]

DOE Submits Revised Draft Study for New Landfill WC Monitor 4/17/2015 The Department of Energy’s Environmental Management team in Oak Ridge has submitted a revised draft of the Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS) for a proposed new CERCLA landfill. The new landfill will be called the Environmental Management Disposal Facility and replace the current facility – […]

H Canyon Spent Fuel Campaign Moves Into Next Phase WC Monitor 4/17/2015 A long-term spent fuel downblending campaign at H-Canyon has moved into the next phase, resuming processing operations in portions of the canyon that had lain dormant for years, the Savannah River Site announced this week. In September, the site’s managing contractor, Savannah River […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/10/2015 NuVision Engineering Inc. last week took over ownership of the company from the U.K.-based investor group Vision Capital, qualifying it to compete for small business set-aside contracts, the company announced this week. The investor group, which acquired NuVision in 2006, exited the business April 1 in a long-anticipated round of […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/10/2015 The long-awaited final Department of Energy Accident Investigation Board report on last year’s radiological release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant appears set to be released by late next week, as DOE has set a public meeting for April 16 in Carlsbad, N.M., to discuss the report. The third and […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/10/2015 Despite marking an upturn in fee performance after years of steady decline, Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, is considering challenging its Fiscal Year 2014 award fee determination for the Portsmouth D&D project, WC Monitor has learned. At issue is DOE’s decision to give FBP a rating of only “satisfactory” in one of […]

CBFO Manager Joe Franco to Take Senior Post at DOE Richland Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/10/2015 With the announcement this week that Joe Franco is stepping down as Manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office for a senior position at DOE’s Richland Operations Office, officials said that a replacement would need to maintain […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/10/2015 With construction of Savannah River’s Salt Waste Processing Facility currently on track to be completed months ahead of schedule in May 2016, efforts are also focusing on integrating the plant into the site’s existing liquid waste system. The SWPF is designed to significantly increase processing rates of liquid waste in […]

Todd Jacobson WC Monitor 4/10/2015 President Barack Obama made it official this week, announcing that he intends to nominate White House nuclear energy official Joyce Connery and nuclear industry veteran Bruce Hamilton to serve on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. WC Monitor first reported last week that the two were the top candidates to […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/10/2015 With Savannah River’s HB-Line in a “safety pause” since an incident in January, processing is expected to resume in the early summer after a recovery plan and corrective actions are put in place, Jim Giusti, a spokesman for the DOE Savannah River Operations Office, said this week. The incident occurred […]

WTP Pulse Jet Mixing Tests Going Well, Officials Say WC Monitor 4/10/2015 Hanford officials have seen encouraging results in half-scale tests of a system to keep high-level radioactive waste well mixed within certain tanks in the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, according to Bechtel National. “We’ve had a few surprises when we’ve been doing this testing,” […]

At PFP, Large Counterweight Accidently Dropped on Canyon Floor WC Monitor 4/10/2015 At the Plutonium Finishing Plant decontamination project last month a 1,140-pound counterweight accidently fell 12 feet to the canyon floor, though no workers were in the area at the time and it is not believed to have caused damage. The crane is remotely […]

NNSA Says ‘Considerable Time’ Needed to Resolve TRU Facility Analyses WC Monitor 4/10/2015 The National Nuclear Security Administration expects to take “considerable time” resolving issues with the documented safety analyses at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s facility for loading transuranic waste before allowing operations to restart, the agency said in a recent letter to the Defense […]

Savannah River National Lab Named Safest National Lab in DOE Complex WC Monitor 4/10/2015 Savannah River National Lab has been ranked as the safest lab among the 15 in the Department of Energy complex, SRNL announced this week, receiving the distinction in 10 of the past 11 years. The lab had a 2014 rate of […]

WC Monitor 4/10/2015 IN CONGRESS The Congressional Nuclear Cleanup Caucus will hold its second meeting of the year on April 15 with a panel of Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management officials focusing on “progress through partnership.” The meeting, to be held in Room 2325 of the Rayburn House Office Building from 5:00 pm. […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/3/2015 Questioning whether former Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman complied with ethics guidelines and federal conflict-of-interest laws, lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week launched a probe into Poneman’s recent appointment to CEO of Centrus Energy Corp. Earlier this month, the uranium enrichment firm, which under its […]

Todd Jacobson WC Monitor 4/3/2015 Richard Reback, the acting general counsel of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, was placed on administrative leave last month after the Department of Energy revoked his security clearance, WC Monitor has learned. DOE’s decision to revoke Reback’s clearance was sparked by an investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Inspector […]

Department ‘Hopes’ Actual Waste Processing Can Begin Sooner Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/3/2015 The Idaho Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), key to addressing the remaining liquid waste at the Department of Energy’s Idaho site, is now expected to begin full operations by the fall of 2016 under a schedule DOE reached with Idaho environmental regulators […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/3/2015 As Babcock and Wilcox continues to move forward with plans to split into two businesses, additional details have emerged of the management structure intended for BWXT Technologies, which will consist of B&W’s nuclear operations, technical services, nuclear energy, and mPower businesses. Bill Fox will serve as President of the Technical […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/3/2015 Los Alamos National Security, LLC, the managing contractor for Los Alamos National Laboratory, is moving to significantly reduce subcontractor personnel working on transuranic waste processing, cutting workers from 42 down to eight, WC Monitor has learned. LANL had been the focus of a high-profile campaign to remove all aboveground transuranic […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/3/2015 The Department of Energy’s National TRU Program is kicking off an extensive review of transuranic waste generator sites in response to the radiological release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant after the existing system of checks and balances failed to catch the drum linked to the release. The February 2014 […]