Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Department of Energy says it will take 60 more days, until mid-September, for it to prepare a report and briefing addressing Defense Nuclear Facilities Board concerns about continuous monitoring for a new ventilation system at the agency’s deep-underground transuranic waste disposal site in New Mexico. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said in […]

A federal judge in New Mexico granted the Department of Energy and the New Mexico Environment Department until Oct. 7 to continue settlement talks on changes to agreements governing legacy waste cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Robbenhaar on Tuesday ordered another 90-day extension of the settlement talks after the […]

The Department of Energy’s $8-billion nuclear cleanup branch has started implementing some best practices sought by the Government Accountability Office but still has far to go, according to a report out Monday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management “is updating its site-specific life-cycle cost and schedule estimates to use as baselines to track progress and […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants the Government Accountability Office to examine the culture and workings of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, according to a bill report the committee published this week. “Recent assessments from the National Academy of Public Administration and from the Office of the Inspector General for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission […]

The story “Ecology posts demo permit for 2,000-gallon test bed, challenge possible” [Weapons Complex Monitor, Volume 35, No. 27] should have said DOE plans to transport the pretreated waste liquid waste out-of-state for grouting and disposal.

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday voted 30-26, largely along party lines, to approve a budget bill that would provide more than $8.3 billion for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch in fiscal 2025. There was little mention of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management during the hour-plus markup. The measure will next be considered […]

The full Senate Tuesday voted 54-to-41, mostly upon party lines, to confirm the nomination of Patricia Lee, a manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  The final vote was tallied shortly after 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. The Senate […]

Department of Energy contractors should consider requiring “diversity training” when developing diversity plans, according to the latest version of its acquisition guide, published this week. That’s despite recent pushback by Republican House appropriators. Diversity plans were already required by DOE’s acquisition regulation. The changes published this week, dated June 2024, ratchet up requirements to monitor […]

In notices last week, the Department of Energy said it plans to again extend incumbent cleanup contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky for up to a year. DOE published a notice of intent July 2 to extend the Decontamination & Decommissioning services contract held by Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth for […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of a must-pass defense policy bill would again authorize more than $7 billion for the Department of Energy to carry out Defense Environmental Cleanup at nuclear weapons complex sites. Language in the nearly 1,200-page bill would also allow the secretary of energy to accelerate cleanup at nuclear facilities if […]

By John Stang OLYMPIA, WASH. — The Hanford Site faces an extremely tight schedule to select both a technology and a destination for low-level radioactive waste intended to be immobilized in grout, the site’s top lawyer said here this week. “It is an aggressive timeline” said DOE’s chief Hanford counsel Mark Silberstein on the tight […]

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) wants to amend the House Appropriations Committee’s 2025 energy and water bill to strip out a GOP provision to zero-fund the Department of Energy’s Justice40 Initiative. Stansbury, whose district includes Albuquerque, filed an amendment with the House Rules Commitment to strike part of the bill that prohibits funds from being used […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state recently finished removing 346,000 gallons of radioactive and chemical waste from Tank AX-101, the 21st single-shell tank to be emptied at Hanford, DOE said this week. The retrieval project was completed by June, DOE said in a Tuesday press release. Amentum-led contractor Washington River […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s largest ever carbon-pollution-free procurement would be a partnership with Los Alamos that aims to provide two Department of Energy labs in New Mexico with electricity from solar energy, the agency said Thursday. The project — called the Los Alamos County Foxtail Flats Solar and Storage Project — will notionally be […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology in June formally signed off on a Department of Energy plan to solidify into a concrete-like grout up to 2,000 gallons of low-level liquid radioactive waste from the Hanford Site. Filtering of cesium and other radionuclides, what DOE calls pretreatment, will happen onsite at the former plutonium production complex, […]

The security guard’s union at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state accuses Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions in court papers of trying to run out the clock on the existing labor contract without first resolving an overtime dispute. Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS), the DOE landlord contractor, has twice canceled arbitration sessions […]

Bruce Covert, a longtime executive with Amentum and its predecessors, who held many senior jobs across the Department of Energy’s weapons complex, retired June 30, the company confirmed Tuesday. Covert in May announced he would retire as deputy general manager at Amentum-led Waste Treatment Completion Co. He will be succeeded by another longtime senior manager […]

A relatively new federal district judge in South Carolina will preside over an employment discrimination case against the Department of Energy’s management prime for the Savannah River Site. U.S. District Judge Jacquelyn Austin will hear the job discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions filed this spring by a former employee, a […]

Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, the contractor for roads, grounds and essential infrastructure-related chores at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, appointed Todd Synoground acting chief operations officer. Synoground, listed as senior vice president of infrastructure and site services on the contractor’s website, will step in as acting operations chief with Amy Basche moving up […]

The lame duck cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the provider of depleted uranium hexafluoride services there and at the Paducah Site in Kentucky each collected most of the available fee for the opening four months of fiscal 2024, DOE said Tuesday. In a press release, DOE’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project […]

In a Friday voice vote, the House Appropriations  Energy & Water Subcommittee advanced to the full committee a Department of Energy budget bill that proposes more than $8.3 billion for the agency’s Office of Environmental Management, down about $160 million from this year. The 2025 spending bill was reported to the full House Appropriations Committee […]

The head of an Amentum-led cleanup prime at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site is leaving and will be replaced by the top executive of the Leidos-led landlord contractor at the former plutonium production complex in Washington state. In a Monday press release, Central Plateau Cleanup President John Eschenberg said he was leaving the remediation […]

The construction subcontractor could formally transfer possession of the new underground ventilation system at the Department of Energy’s transuranic waste disposal site in New Mexico to the Bechtel-led prime contractor by the end of August, according to a government safety board. The tentative date for turnover from the construction subcontractor to Waste Isolation Pilot Plant […]

Two citizen groups in Washington state that track the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site said Friday they were not surprised to see a delay in cold commissioning of the multibillion-dollar plant to turn liquid radioactive waste into glass. DOE said last week it expects to miss the Aug. 1 target for starting cold commissioning, which […]

The Energy Facility Contractors Group last week elected Honeywell International vice president David (DJ) Johnson chair of the group’s board of directors, according to a press release. Johnson will succeed Michael Lempke of Huntington Ingalls. The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) also elected Mark Whitney, the president of Amentum’s national security group, its vice chair […]

At a time of much Department of Energy turnover at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a government safety watchdog says DOE relies too heavily on staff expertise. As a result, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Chair Joyce Connery wants a report and briefing before Christmas on DOE steps to upgrade its facility […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ordered final briefs by July 18 in a COVID-19 vaccination lawsuit brought by a former employee against the Department of Energy’s environmental prime at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The Cincinnati-based federal appeals court said May 31 it “has determined that oral argument is […]

A BWX Technologies-led joint venture that twice won a $45-billion liquid waste contract at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, last week withdrew its 2023 case with a federal appeals court, seemingly clearing the way for a U.S. Federal Claims Court to again rule on a contract challenge by the losing bidder. According to online […]