Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

A Department of Energy contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York could send another shipment of legacy waste containers to Waste Control Specialists in Texas this summer, a DOE spokesperson said Monday. DOE announced in a press release last week that eight legacy waste containers, each weighing about 94,000 pounds, were […]

A group of plaintiffs who claim they were wrongly fired by the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee after seeking religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccination, are trying mediation to settle their lawsuit. The sides should know this week whether a settlement is in the cards, court papers show. […]

The Battelle-led prime of the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory is shopping for a subcontractor to collect and ship sand contaminated with mercury to a Veolia waste facility in Gum Springs, Ark., from the Upton, N.Y., lab, according to a solicitation posted online Tuesday. Questions about the work are due by June 5 and […]

The Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility in South Carolina is still falling short of Department of Energy production goals but that’s partly due to downtime at another waste facility, an advisory board heard Monday. The Salt Waste Processing Facility has processed 1.3 million gallons so far in 2024 and a total of 8.7 […]

The current Amentum-led environmental prime, and its predecessor, deny violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, or government whistleblower protections, connected with the firing of a worker at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The nuclear cleanup contractor is the target of a wrongful termination and whistleblower case brought by Christopher Hicks. The […]

Some, not all, weapons complex watchers contacted Thursday were caught off guard by President Joe Biden’s announcement of the planned nomination of William (Ike) White, longtime acting Department of Energy cleanup boss, to join the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Exchange Monitor queried seven observers of DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) and the Defense […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office on Thursday rolled out its draft solicitation for a new small business landlord contractor at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. The DOE Office of Environmental Management said in a Thursday press release it is issuing a draft request for proposals (RFP) for the Paducah Infrastructure Support Services contract. […]

President Joe Biden said Thursday afternoon he plans to nominate William Isaac (Ike) White, acting head of Department of Energy nuclear cleanup since mid-2019, to become a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. News of the planned nomination, in a White House press release, comes only three weeks prior to when White would […]

After reaching a new labor contract with Centrus Energy for dozens of employees involved in making enriched uranium at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio, a United Steelworkers union local is in negotiations with the landlord contractor for the complex. Although the new Centrus contract, reached in March, only involves 40 people for […]

A U.S. District Court magistrate judge in Ohio issued an order last week coordinating pre-trial discovery in four federal lawsuits against present and former contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers issued the stipulation and order Friday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. “Overlapping discovery” […]

The Department of Energy Tuesday rolled out its second market information request for carbon-free electricity at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, with an eye toward bigger projects that might generate power for locals near the nuclear complex. A top DOE nuclear cleanup manager at Savannah River said recently the agency is evaluating solar […]

The Department of Energy in late May will hold an information session and site tour for potential bidders on a new Infrastructure Support Service contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management recently announced it would extend the incumbent landlord contractor Swift & Staley for up to 16 months, potentially through […]

Jessica Kunkle. a Los Alamos, N.M., native and longtime National Nuclear Security Administration executive, will lead the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management field operation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory starting in June. Kunkle has been with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) about 15 years and is a deputy administrator with NNSA’s […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Advisory Board for the nuclear cleanup site in Washington state, wants the feds to start looking for a second underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste —just in case. DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), near Carlsbad, N.M., is permitted by the New Mexico Environment Department to continue disposing of […]

Earnings rose at AtkinsRéalis, Montreal, Canada, in the first quarter, which the company attributed in part Wednesday to surging international interest in new nuclear power. Net earnings for the first quarter ended were C$45.5 million (US$33.45 million) or C$0.26 (US$0.19) a share, up from C$28.4 million (US$20.88 million) or or C$0.16 a share (U.S. 0.12 […]

A trio of small businesses based in Oak Ridge Tenn., have teamed up to form Nuclear Services Partners LLC, to pursue nuclear contracts in Tennessee and nationally, the companies announced last week. Nuclear Services Partners is a joint venture of Navarro Research and Engineering, MS Technology and Strata-G. Together the three small businesses have a […]

With a June 7 deadline looming, supporters of reauthorizing the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act gathered in the U.S. Capitol grounds Thursday to urge House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to hold a vote on the bill. As of the Thursday May 16 rally and press conference, the House of Representatives had nine working days left to […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 54 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during April, according to the disposal facility’s public website. April marked the first full month of shipments since the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) ended an extended maintenance outage that kept the facility offline for February. Shipments […]

The Department of Justice and the landlord contractor for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state both anticipate a fraud trial lasting several weeks could be held in federal district court during fall of 2025. That is one of the key takeaways from a joint filing Thursday by Justice, on behalf of a […]

The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory said this week it has signed two subcontracts, worth a combined $36.5 million, with small businesses for building maintenance and health services. Newport News Nuclear BWTX Los Alamos (N3B) said in a Wednesday press release it has signed a roughly $30-million contract […]

Earnings fell at Jacobs, Dallas, in the second quarter of its fiscal 2024, which the international engineering and technical services company attributed to a $95-million share repurchase program. Importantly, Jacobs also said in its Tuesday earnings release that it has major regulatory approvals in hand for the announced merger of its government contracting and cyber […]

Despite protests by a rival, a team led by BWX Technologies has now twice won a $45 billion Department of Energy liquid waste contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state, which shows it is a “superior” proposal, CEO Rex Geveden said Monday during an earnings call. “After multiple protests… the DOE decided to re-award […]

No decision has been made on whether grouting of some low-level radioactive tank waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site would occur inside the 580-square-mile federal complex, or elsewhere, government attorneys told an advisory board Tuesday. A pathway to grout for some Hanford waste sparked questions from the Hanford Advisory Board, which was briefed […]

More than two-dozen U.S. lawmakers urged House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last week to set a floor vote on the Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act, which easily passed the Senate in March. Although the Senate took a “laudable step by passing an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2024 to strengthen RECA [Radiation […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash)., who represents the area around the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, in the House of Representatives, is getting a new challenger, a former GOP Senate candidate, Tiffany Smiley. Smiley, who ran an unsuccessful race against incumbent Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in November 2022, announced Monday she will challenge fellow Republican Newhouse […]

The Department of Energy kicks off its second Cleanup to Clean Energy information day for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina at noon May 23 at 12 p.m. Eastern Time at Aiken Technical College, according to a notice issued by the agency this week. The session is scheduled to run through about 4 p.m. […]

The Department of Energy’s decision not to impose its new high-level radioactive waste interpretation at the Hanford Site in Washington state avoided a lengthy squabble and made it easier for agencies to cut a new deal for cleaning up tank waste, an advisory panel heard Tuesday. By not using a DOE 2020 reinterpretation that allows […]