Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 […]

The story “Upon further review, DOE re-awards mega-dollar Hanford tank contract to BWXT-led group” [Weapons Complex Monitor, Vol. 35 No. 09] should have said BWXT-led Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure filed a case with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. It also should have said the Hanford Tank Disposition Alliance, led by […]

The Department of Energy’s decision to re-award a potential $45-billion contract for liquid radioactive waste management at the Hanford Site in Washington state to a BWX Technologies-led group could put the company at the helm of two major nuclear-weapons cleanups. DOE announced March 1 the re-award of the Integrated Tank Disposition contract to Hanford Tank […]

Department of Energy contractors that have worked at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio last week asked a federal court to throw out the latest complaint by a plaintiff who alleged radioactive contamination escaped from the shuttered gaseous diffusion plant and caused his cancer. The litigation by Joshua Shaw, who blames current and former contractors at […]

During the past calendar year, Bechtel National won $9.5 million, or 92% of a potential $10.3 million, from the Department of Energy for work on the High-Level Waste Facility at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Between Jan. 1, 2023 and Dec. 31, 2023, Bechtel earned 92% of […]

The Department of Energy has started to shop for a small business to be the Technical Support Services contractor for Office of Environmental Management field sites. DOE announced the draft request for proposal (RFP) for a potential five-year, $90-million contract on Thursday in a press release. The agency is shopping around for a small business, […]

This week, almost halfway through the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, congressional appropriators announced they would pass a final 2024 budget for the Department of Energy and other agencies next week. In the meantime, to avoid a partial government shutdown on Friday, when funding for DOE and other agencies was set to expire, Congress […]

The U.S. Department of Energy is studying vitrification technologies as options for treating 1.2 million gallons of calcine, a high-level radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory, a DOE advisory board heard Thursday, Feb. 21. DOE is looking at options from three prospective suppliers: an Atkins-Catholic University joint venture, Orano and Veolia, said Valerie Kimbro, […]

The Department of Energy on Friday issued a request for qualifications for developers interested in installing carbon-free electric power projects of 200 megawatts or more at the Idaho National Laboratory. The request for qualifications is part of DOE’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative to tap unused land on Cold War and Manhattan Project sites for […]

The Department of Energy is starting to shop for developers of carbon-free electricity projects on land at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., the agency announced Tuesday. The request for information notice was published online in the federal government’s System for Award Management (SAM.gov). The targeted projects should be capable of generating at […]

Congressional delay in funding legacy cleanup from nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands — covered in a recent Government Accountability Office report —hurts relations between the United States and the strategically-located Pacific nation, the president of the Marshall Islands told a U.K. newspaper this week. U.S. lawmakers are dragging their feet in funding a […]

As signaled, the Department of Energy’s final solicitation for a new Technical Support Services contract at the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office was published Tuesday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management procurement office  said in mid-February that the final request for proposals (RFP) for technical support at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the Paducah Site in Kentucky and […]

The Defense Nuclear Safety Board staff says some seismic monitoring equipment at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is out of service and DOE’s prime contractor plans to replace the gear later this year.  The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) seismic equipment  on the surface “has failed and is unable to perform its […]

Earnings rose at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., for 2023, which the maker of nuclear naval reactors and manager of nuclear weapons sites attributed Tuesday mostly to favorable adjustments on government contracts. For the year, net earnings were $246.3 million, or $2.68 per share, up about 7.7% from $238.6 million, or $2.60 a share in 2023. […]

Despite his relatively easy re-election in 2022, a couple of Republicans are set to challenge Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a longtime member of the House Appropriations Committee and vocal supporter of the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. A couple of Democrats also plan to run in their party’s 2nd congressional district primary, which like […]

After federal litigation, the Department of Energy has again chosen a BWX Technologies-led group as winner of the Integrated Tank Disposition contract, potentially worth $45 billion over a decade. In a Thursday press release, the DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the selection of Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure to oversee closure of underground […]

Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services has 30 days to contest $382,500 in Department of Energy fines stemming from allegations that the contractor failed to ensure a crane used in Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride Conversion at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio was maintained in a safe manner. The contractor “has not acknowledged these nuclear safety deficiencies, they have […]

A group of 21 plaintiffs who claim they were fired after seeking a religious exemption from COVID-19 vaccinations have filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The former employees of Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) filed suit against the contractor Feb. […]

The Amentum-led environmental prime at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee this week told a federal appeals court it should have sovereign immunity, as a federal contractor, from a lawsuit by a radiation technician who was fired after refusing COVID- 19 vaccination. In its 36-page filing Tuesday, UCOR LLC told the U.S. […]

A private equity firm that acquired and merged several businesses working for the Department of Energy sold the rolled-up companies to Cadre Holdings, a Jacksonville, Fla., maker of law-enforcement equipment. Cadre bought Alpha Safety Group, created by Benford Capital Partners of Chicago in 2021 from the former Nuclear Filter Technologies, for a little more than […]

Fluor Chairman and CEO David Constable expects the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to decide on a new management contractor for the Pantex Plant in Texas in the second or third quarter of this calendar year. Constable made the comment during a Tuesday earnings call with Wall Street analysts. The Fluor chief is […]

Proposals are due by the end of February from subcontractors interested in overhauling the electric power infrastructure within Area 100 of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, according to an updated procurement notice. Proposals in response to the solicitation launched by Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, which acts as city manager for […]

The partial evacuation Tuesday afternoon at the 222-S Laboratory at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state was done as a precaution after “about a thimble full” of a legacy chemical was discovered prior to disposal, an agency spokesperson said in Wednesday emails. The evacuation of 50 to 60 people, initially reported by […]

The cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory will need to treat about twice as much sodium-bearing waste annually as it did during 2023 in order to meet the agency’s target for the new Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, an advisory panel heard Thursday.  After treatment resumes, DOE wants the Integrated Waste Treatment […]