Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Merging the Hanford Site’s two field offices in Washington state will not deprioritize cleanup of millions of gallons of radioactive tank waste, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told House appropriators Wednesday. DOE has for years planned to combine Hanford’s Office of River Protection with the Richland Operations Office in 2025, the same year the site […]

The Department of Energy’s Amentum-led environmental prime at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee on Wednesday signed a new contract affecting 550 members of North America’s Building Trades Unions at the nuclear property. United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) said in a press release the project labor agreement, which covers a quarter of its 2,200-person workforce, […]

Under a settlement with the state, the Department of Energy will install portable showers at the Integrated Disposal Facility once it starts receiving canisters of glass made from radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The agreement, dated March 4 and signed by attorneys for DOE and the Washington Department of Ecology, was […]

A federal nuclear liability shield would be extended for 40 years and quadruple the value of federal indemnity for nuclear incidents outside the U.S. if a 2024 appropriations bill passed by the House Friday becomes law. The language in the appropriations package that funds the Department of Defense and several other agencies would extend the […]

Subcontractors and small businesses should have benefitted more over time from Bechtel National’s multibillion-dollar contract to build the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, DOE’s Office of Inspector General said. By self-performing so much of the work, “Bechtel reduced subcontracting opportunities for small businesses and other […]

“Better contracting, better cleanup” is the big goal in the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s new decade-long strategic vision, released this week. The cleanup branch spends about 95% of its $8-billion-plus annual budget on joint ventures and a contractor workforce of 25,000, the agency said in the 52-page document. “It remains critical that […]

PHOENIX — The Department of Energy has issued requests for qualifications at four of the initial five nuclear properties in the agency’s Cleanup to Clean Energy program, officials here said Tuesday at the Waste Management Symposia conference. As of this week, requests for qualifications (RFQ) have gone out at the Hanford Site in Washington state, […]

PHOENIX —With the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio making headway in nuclear remediation, feds and locals around the Piketon, Ohio complex are working to attract new industry, including nuclear power. That was the takeaway from a Wednesday panel discussion on the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site during the Waste Management Symposium conference. […]

The Joe Biden administration this week requested more than $8.2 billion for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management in fiscal 2025, or $253 million less than the $8.5-billion spending package finally approved by Congress and signed by the president last weekend. The formal request, which merely provides the starting point for congressional appropriators, […]

PHOENIX—There were moments this week when Waste Management Symposia participants could mistakenly think they stumbled into an economic development conference rather than one about nuclear cleanup. While Department of Energy weapons complex sites have long been economic engines for rural, isolated communities, there was much emphasis lately on reindustrialization. If not a chicken-in-every pot, the […]

PHOENIX — The Savannah River Site could send as many as 40 shipments of diluted surplus plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2024, a manager at the Savannah River Site said here. Or maybe half that many, Lee Sims, K Area Facility Manager at Savannah River for the site’s Fluor-led prime contractor, Savannah […]

Crews have started heating up the second melter for the Department of Energy’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the agency said Wednesday. “Last year, the Hanford team successfully completed heat up of the first melter and poured the first non-radioactive test glass,” at the Waste Treatment Plant built […]

Six national laboratories will split $27.3 million from the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management to help hasten cleanup of underground radioactive waste at the DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state. In a separate but related development, Congress, in a report appended to a full-year appropriations bill signed Saturday, called for briefings to lawmakers […]

PHOENIX— Contaminated old buildings at U.S. nuclear weapons sites are being torn down and, internationally, nuclear power is increasingly seen as a legitimate source of carbon-free electricity, participants in the Waste Management Symposia heard Monday. “For people familiar with EM [the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management], there is no better illustration of progress […]

PHOENIX— A maintenance outage at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., which started Jan. 26, concluded Monday, a site manager said. Shipments of defense-related transuranic waste to the underground salt mine should resume Friday, March 15, Tammy Hobbes, vice president of site prime contractor Salado Isolation Mining Contractors said Monday […]

PHOENIX — Jeff Avery, No. 2 boss at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, said Tuesday he understands industry frustration over the slow pace of big industry procurements. “Here’s what I can tell you about some of the extended procurement experiences,” Avery told Exchange Monitor during an interview on the sidelines of the […]

Now in his second year as second-in-charge at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, Jeff Avery wants a laser focus on nuclear cleanup balanced with an eye toward doing “public good” where practical. During a 20-minute interview with Exchange Monitor on the sidelines of the Waste Management Symposia, Avery touched upon the evolving […]

The Department of Energy has scrubbed its goal to restart this month the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at Idaho National Laboratory. “This week, while performing start-up operations at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), crews identified abnormal conditions while performing testing in preparation for resuming waste processing,” DOE said in an email press release shared […]

The Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would extend and expand the federal legislation that financially compensates people harmed by radioactive material used to build the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The measure passed 69-30 with one senator not voting. President Joe Biden (D) on Tuesday said he would sign the bill. “The President believes we have […]

Mark Brown, deputy manager of Department of Energy nuclear cleanup at the Idaho National Laboratory, will become manager of the field operation earlier than announced, the agency said Thursday. Brown will assume the Idaho Cleanup Project manager job starting Sunday, March 10, a DOE spokesperson said by email. Connie Flohr will remain on staff serving […]

The largest nuclear cleanup sites run by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management would meet or beat fiscal 2023 funding levels, under the compromise 2024 appropriations bill released over the weekend. The Office of Environmental Management would get about $8.5 billion for fiscal 2024, roughly what Senate appropriators recommended. The final bill would […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board continues without a quorum for its role as federal safety watchdog for Department of Energy nuclear weapons facilities, and the current chair’s term expires this fall. Designed as a five-person panel, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) still has only two members. A Senate committee has approved a […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration wants to hear from entities interested in building a massive, 2,000-acre clean-energy farm to help power the Nevada National Security Site outside Las Vegas. In an 18-page request for qualifications published Friday, the NNSA said it will choose one or more companies to develop and construct a facility capable of […]

The Department of Energy officially said Friday it is seeking competitive bids from qualified parties to help develop carbon-free electric power projects of at least 200 megawatts at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Proposals are due April 15, tax day, in response to the request for qualifications  published March 1 in the system for […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board this week announced the promotion of two senior staffers at the federal watchdog agency for Department of Energy nuclear sites. In moves effective Feb. 26, Katherine Herrera became the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB)’s first deputy executive director of operations and Timothy Dwyer was appointed the agency’s new […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has started sampling for radioactive contamination buried deep beneath a subdivision in Florissant, Mo., near Coldwater Creek, the federal organization said Monday. The Corps’ St. Louis District office said in a press release sampling is starting under its Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), in Florissant, about 18 […]

The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory officially closed out its remediation of a stretch of public road, previously thought to be clean, where contamination was discovered in 2020, the contractor said this week. In February, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) said the investigation and cleanup of contaminated […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has issued a solicitation for a contractor to clean up the DuPont Chambers Works Atomic Energy Commission site in Deepwater, N.J. The Philadelphia District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday issued an updated request for proposals (RFP) to award a five-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract under […]