Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

A federal court was wrong in June 2023 to block the Department of Energy’s award of a $45-billion liquid waste contract, the BWX Technologies-led team that won the work argued this week. Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn’s decision to block the DOE’s April 2023 issuance of the contract to Hanford Tank Operations and Closure […]

There are lots of new workers joining the nuclear industry these days, but Baltimore-based Constellation Energy has perhaps the only one to list “former Miss America” on her resume. Constellation announced in a Monday press release it hired former Miss America Grace Stanke as a full-time employee working as both an engineer and a spokesperson […]

There are no reports of damage at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state from a magnitude 2.8 earthquake that hit an area near on Saturday, an agency spokesperson said this week.  The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake hit about 2.5 miles south of Richland, Wash., which is itself about 15 […]

The Department of Energy prime for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has hired a mine company to refurbish a large underground salt bin this year. Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, which runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for DOE, has retained Cementation, a mine development company with offices in Utah and […]

The story “Los Alamos hexavalent chromium review won’t dither, says former DOE cleanup boss” [Weapons Complex Monitor, April, 19, 2024] should have said John Rhoderick is director of the water protection division for the New Mexico Environment Department.

The Department of Energy weapons complex might consider adopting safety practices other agencies use to reduce on-the-job contractor accidents and learn from such incidents, according to a new report. That’s a key takeaway included in a contractor safety analysis for fiscal years 2019 through 2023 done by DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments. The agency’s investigative […]

The Legacy Mine Cleanup Bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), passed the Senate Monday in a voice vote. The legislation would make permanent a special Western office with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help coordinate reclamation of abandoned hardrock mines, including legacy uranium sites, according to online data on […]

A New Mexico resident is suing the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories for slander, defamation, violation of the Freedom of Information Act and — causing the breakup of his 28-year marriage. William Gardner, who is representing himself, filed the action against DOE and Sandia last month. Gardner claims DOE falsely accused him of criminal […]

Republican Jerrod Sessler, who is again mounting a primary challenge to Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), picked up an expected albeit influential endorsement Friday from former president and presumptive GOP 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump. Newhouse, who has used his House Appropriations Committee post to push for greater nuclear cleanup funding for the Department of Energy’s […]

The Department of Energy has approved its latest jumbo-sized saltstone disposal unit for operation at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the agency said Tuesday. Saltstone Disposal Unit 9 (SDU 9) is the fourth such mega unit built at Savannah River to hold up to 33 million gallons of saltstone, DOE said in a […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, coming out of a maintenance outage, received 23 shipments of transuranic waste during the last half of March, according to online data. Because of the extended maintenance outage, which kept the underground salt mine offline all of February, shipment only resumed March 15. The […]

After more than three years and one near-settlement, the final plaintiff suing the Department of Energy prime managing the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee has settled her case in federal court over COVID-19 vaccination policy. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley formally dismissed the case by plaintiff Jessica Bilyeu after Bilyeu notified the […]

Federal and state agencies could soon provide details about a new conceptual agreement for cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), said Tuesday. Cantwell spoke during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on DOE’s fiscal 2025 budget request. The conceptual agreement, announced in May 2023, […]

Strategic Management Solutions, a small contractor for the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration, has been acquired by a Louisiana-based private equity management firm led by a former Shaw Group executive. The purchase of Strategic Management Solutions, LLC (SMSI) was announced Tuesday in a press release by Bernhard Capital Partners. The buyer […]

Local officials in Western Kentucky said Wednesday the Department of Energy is picking up its remaining two-year option on its Deactivation and Remediation Contract with Jacobs-led Four River Nuclear Partnership at the Paducah Site. Four Rivers, a joint venture that also includes Fluor and BWX Technologies, currently has a $1.7-billion contract that started in June […]

An expert review team led by Inés Triay, a former head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch, hopes to have most of its research done by this fall on a chromium plume at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. “We think we can finish this endeavor by the end of the […]

The Department of Energy has issued its final request for qualifications for clean energy projects on 9,000 acres of land above its underground disposal site for transuranic waste in New Mexico. Responses to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) request for qualifications for carbon-free energy projects of at least 200 megawatts are due by 11:59 […]

The Department of Energy Thursday published its justification to extend the incumbent decommissioning contractor at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio until Sept. 30. The move to extend Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth six months from April 1 to Sept. 30 was expected. The agency announced its intention just after Christmas. DOE published its justification for extending the incumbent […]

The Department of Energy plans to use Aptim, one of nine companies selected in a national solicitation in 2020, as its decommissioning and demolition contractor for Building 281 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. DOE published a justification for not doing additional competitive bidding for the work, worth up to $22.1 million, in […]

The Department of Energy’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is asking the New Mexico Environment Department for certain permit modifications, including approval of four new shielded containers suitable for carrying remote-handled transuranic waste. DOE and Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors filed the Hazardous Waste Facility Permit modification document with the state March […]

The Department of Energy is giving bidders on the $2.9-billion Portsmouth / Paducah Project Office (PPPO) Operations and Site Mission Support contract until April 17 to tweak their proposals, sources tell Exchange Monitor. The contract will cover running depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion plants in Ohio and Kentucky, among other things. April 17 is the deadline […]

The governors of Arizona and New Mexico wrote the White House Council on Environmental Quality this week urging the federal government to prioritize cleanup of old uranium mines in the Southwest, and appoint a regional coordinator. There are 650 abandoned uranium mines spread across the two states. Many date to the 1950s, before implementation of […]

In a legal brief filed in federal court, Department of Energy contractors said a Pike County, Ohio man waited too long, 15 years after being diagnosed with cancer, and more than four years after a local school closed, to allege the contractors contaminated the area around the Portsmouth Site. Plaintiff Joshua Shaw blames contractors at […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has brought online the second melter at the multibillion-dollar facility designed to solidify liquid radioactive waste into a solid glass-like form, the agency said this week. DOE said in a Tuesday press release that the second 300-ton melter at Bechtel’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant has […]

New Mexico and the Department of Energy will get until July 8 to continue settlement talks on revising a 2016 consent order governing legacy waste cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a federal court said this week. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Robbenhaar issued a Monday order extending the timeline following the latest joint status […]

A federal district judge in Washington state has set a May 16 scheduling conference to start addressing pre-trial issues in a False Claims Act complaint against the Department of Energy’s Leidos-led landlord contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state. U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian scheduled the video conference to start determining issues where the […]

The Amentum-led prime at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee told a federal appeals’ court this week its COVID-19 vaccination mandate fulfilled a contractual obligation to take “reasonable precautions” to protect worker health. UCOR’s contract with DOE, awarded in July 2010, required the Amentum-Jacobs joint venture to “take all reasonable precautions to […]

Wrap: House vote sought on compensation bill; EPA updates PRAS advice; Cole to lead House Appropriations and more Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) has called on House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to set a vote on S.3853, a bill to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act, before it expires June 7. The Senate […]