Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 10/3/2014 The Department of Energy failed to meet a Sept. 30 commitment to begin operations at the Idaho Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, and it continues to be unclear when the facility will begin actually processing waste. A DOE spokesman confirmed late last week that the Department would not be able to […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 10/3/2014 In the next move in a lawsuit filed by uranium conversion company ConverDyn aiming to limit the Department of Energy’s transfers of excess uranium to pay for cleanup work, DOE late last week urged the court to grant summary judgment in its favor. ConverDyn has argued that DOE’s transfers violate […]

Sellafield Awards £336M Contract to Jacobs-Led Team  Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 10/2/2014 A team of team of Jacobs, AMEC and Balfour Beatty has won a contract framework worth up to £336 million ($546 million) for the Box Encapsulation Project at Sellafield, site license company Sellafield Ltd. announced this week. The project aims to treat waste […]

DOE Completes Waste Retrieval From 13 of 16 Tanks by Deadline WC Monitor 10/3/2014 Washington state agreed this week that the Department of Energy had met the 2010 consent decree requirements for emptying another waste tank at Hanford. That brought DOE closer to meeting the consent decree deadline to have the 16 C Farm Tanks […]

Leak at Old Research Reactor Stable, Officials Say WC Monitor 10/3/2014 The search for the leak in a reactor pool at one of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s stable of shutdown nuclear research reactors is still ongoing, but officials emphasized that the situation is stable and not getting worse. Some issues have apparently been ruled out. […]

FY14 Comes and Goes, and Still No FY 2013 Fee for CHPRC WC Monitor 10/3/2014 With Fiscal Year 2015 getting underway this week, the Department of Energy has yet to finalize a FY 2013 fee determination for Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. The DOE Richland Operations Office confirmed this week that the […]

SRNS Launches Coal Ash Cleanup Effort WC Monitor 10/3/2014 Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the managing contractor for the Savannah River Site, has launched a project to clean up 1.3 million cubic yards of coal ash by June 2019 to remediate a 90-acre spot in the site’s D Area. The ash landfill and three adjacent basins […]

WC Monitor 10/3/2014 IN DOE Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is set to begin serving as the new Deputy Secretary of Energy Oct. 6, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a message to employees this week. She replaces Dan Poneman, who formally retired this week from the Department of Energy after serving as deputy secretary for five years. […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 9/26/2014 As the Department of Energy moves to shift responsibility for cleanup work at Los Alamos National Laboratory to the DOE Office of Environmental Management, four LANL cleanup managers late this week were relieved of their duties in a major management change following issues with the site’s transuranic waste program. The […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 9/26/2014 After numerous issues led to a three-year delay and increased costs at Hanford’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, the Department of Energy is taking steps to increase oversight of CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company’s contract. D&D work at the former plutonium processing facility was originally expected to be complete by September 2013 […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 9/26/2014 After South Carolina and the Environmental Protection Agency denied a request from the Department of Energy to extend a Savannah River high-level waste tank closure milestone, DOE late last week invoked dispute resolution on the matter. Citing technical and funding issues, DOE in August requested an extension of the closure […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 9/26/2014 A team led by Navarro Research and Engineering has won the National Nuclear Security Administration’s new contract to provide environmental program services at the Nevada National Security Site. The award was first reported by WC Monitor, with the NNSA subsequently making an official announcement late this week. The new contract […]

Former WRPS Worker Says She Was Terminated for Raising Concerns Mike Nartker WC Monitor 9/26/2014 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has long been an advocate for whistleblowers at Hanford, is not happy with how the site’s tank farms contractor is handling its challenge to a preliminary order from the Department of Labor to reinstate a […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 9/26/2014 The Department of Energy notified the states of Washington and Oregon this week that a third Hanford waste tank is at serious risk of not being emptied by the deadline in the 2010 court-enforced consent decree. DOE is required to have the 16 tanks in the C Tank Farm emptied […]

New Dounreay Funding Profile Expected at End of the Year Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 9/26/2014 Completion of a new funding profile for the Dounreay site is now not expected to occur until the end of this year, though officials had originally hoped to complete the process this month. “It’s such a big thing, they don’t […]

Hanford’s 242-A Evaporator Restarts Operations WC Monitor 9/26/2014 Hanford’s 242-A Evaporator has restarted operations in recent weeks and in its latest campaign has reduced tank waste volume by an estimated 365,000 gallons. The evaporator is used to concentrate waste in Hanford’s double-shell tank farms to help increase available space, and will be used in multiple […]

Perma-Fix Looks to Add Evaporator System That Could Aid Hanford Cleanup WC Monitor 9/26/2014 Perma-Fix Northwest is proposing adding an evaporation system to its suite of systems used to treat and package waste at its Richland, Wash., plant near Hanford. The new system would be used to treat water contaminated with mixed low-level radioactive waste, […]

DOE Completes Final EA on Demo of Central Facilities Area Structures WC Monitor 9/26/2014 The Department of Energy has completed a Final Environmental Assessment on the proposed demolition of five structures at the Idaho National Laboratory’s Central Facilities Area, finding that the action will not have a significant impact on the environment. The facilities, which […]

Potential Detonation Threat Comes From Pu Containers From SRS WC Monitor 9/26/2014 The Department of Energy this week confirmed that a detonation threat under review at an Oak Ridge waste storage site involves containers of plutonium that were brought to Oak Ridge from Savannah River more than 30 years ago. Mike Koentop, executive officer at […]

SRS CAB: Lack of DOE Communication Could ‘Erode Public Trust’ WC Monitor 9/26/2014 The Savannah River Citizens Advisory Board is citing poor communication from the Department of Energy as threatening to “erode public trust,” and passed two recommendations this week that aim to improve lines of information from DOE. Instead of DOE sharing information with […]

WC Monitor 9/26/2014 IN DOE The Department of Energy plans to hold a pre-proposal conference briefing and site tour the week of Oct. 13 for the new Paducah infrastructure support services contract. DOE also said in a notice published late this week that it plans to issue a final Request for Proposals for the new […]

Mike Nartker and Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 9/19/2014 Contractors at several Department of Energy sites are facing growing maintenance needs that could disrupt cleanup efforts if not addressed, according to a set of assessments DOE recently provided to WC Monitor. The assessments were conducted as part of a complex-wide extent-of-condition review of deferred maintenance across […]

New Mexico Has Called for LANL Cleanup to be Taken Out of NNSA Kenneth Fletcher and Todd Jacobson WC Monitor 9/19/2014 Following a call from New Mexico’s environmental regulator to break out the cleanup work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, LANL Director Charlie McMillan this week emphasized the advantages of keeping cleanup in the current […]

Four-Year Project Now to Take More Than 10 Years to Finish Mike Nartker WC Monitor 9/19/2014 Efforts to complete the long-troubled Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) D&D project appear to have hit a new hurdle, with the Department of Energy now projecting the need for an additional three years from previous estimates to complete the […]

South Carolina: ‘Treatment Delay Is Unacceptable’ Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 9/19/2014 The Department of Energy has approved a new baseline for the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility that includes a nearly $1 billion cost increase from previous official estimates and pushes back plant startup by as much as five years. The baseline change […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 9/19/2014 Congress late this week completed work on a stop-gap measure intended to continue to fund the federal government at the start of Fiscal Year 2015 in the absence of completed individual spending bills. The Continuing Resolution will fund most Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration programs at annualized […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 9/19/2014 The Senate late this week confirmed the Obama Administration’s choice of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall to serve as the next Deputy Secretary of Energy. Sherwood-Randall last served as Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for Defense Policy, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Arms Control. Among her previous positions, […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 9/19/2014 CH2M Hill is looking to reduce its workforce by approximately 1,200 people out of 26,000 employees as part of a new restructuring plan that the company said last week is intended to generate approximately $100 million in “operational efficiencies.” The restructuring will entail “a voluntary retirement program, workforce reductions and […]