Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Department of Energy’s Jacobs-led cleanup contractor at the Idaho National Laboratory failed to take proper precautions before a January 2023 worker exposure to carbon monoxide, DOE’s internal enforcement wing wrote in a recent letter. An industrial hygienist suffered physical symptoms linked to “acute” carbon monoxide (CO) exposure immediately following detection of dangerous levels of […]

The Department of Energy expects the number of transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will increase by more than 50 in fiscal year 2024, and DOE is also in the early stages of a carbon-free energy procurement for the site, New Mexico lawmakers heard last week. Total shipments to the underground salt […]

Former and current Department of Energy contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio have filed an unopposed motion in federal court seeking until Feb. 26 to answer a complaint by a local resident who blames his leukemia on radioactive contamination from the property. The motion, seeking three weeks beyond the original Feb. 5 deadline, was […]

Maria Chappelle-Nadal, the county prosecutor for St. Louis, is running for the Democratic nomination in this year’s race for a House seat representing Missouri’s 1st district and currently held by two-term Rep. Cori. Bush (D). The St. Louis-area district includes the Jana Elementary school that closed in Oct. 2022 after discovery of radioactive contamination from […]

Missouri’s governor requested some $220,000 from the state legislature to oversee the federal government’s cleanup of Manhattan Project waste in the state and help local governments look for more contamination. The money, $221,131 in total, would go to the Radioactive Waste Investigation fund at the Division of Environmental Quality within the state’s Department of Natural […]

Those interested in bidding on a potentially $3 billion contract for Phase 1B remediation work at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state will get an extra week, until March 4, to submit their proposals, the Department of Energy said last week.  In the package of questions and answers released Feb. 1, DOE’s Office of […]

The Department of Energy contractor in charge of tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state is shopping for potential subcontractors capable of refurbishing up to 10 miles of underground pipeline for double-shelled waste-storage tanks. Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions published its notice seeking expressions of interest in the project on Jan. 30. Replies are due […]

The Department of Energy is looking at two incidents of skin contamination at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility in New Mexico during January, according to a recent report from a federal safety agency. In one the likely source was a contaminated phone in a laboratory room, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board […]

Earnings rose at Jacobs, Dallas, in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, which the global engineering, procurement and construction company attributed partly to international infrastructure projects. Tuesday’s press release marked the first earnings results from Jacobs since the company’s Nov. 20 announcement of a plan to merge its government contracting and cyber business lines with Virginia-based Amentum. […]

Department of Energy contractors at the Hanford Site in Washington state are making headway on remaining problems before crews can start turning some less-radioactive tank waste at the property into a solid glass form, the Hanford Advisory Board heard Tuesday. After making a batch of non-radioactive test glass in December, DOE wants to start vitrification of direct-feed-low-activity-waste […]

Butte County, Idaho has not shown the Department of Energy’s storage of spent nuclear fuel at Idaho National Laboratory violates the law, but the county may amend its complaint to preserve its lawsuit, a federal district judge ruled last week. U.S. District Court Judge David Nye on Thursday granted DOE’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit […]

Although the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup wing awarded two multibillion-dollar environmental deals in 2023, work has not started on any of the four contracts it prioritized for the past calendar year. On paper at least, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management awarded the $45-billion Hanford Site Integrated Tanks contract in Washington state along with the […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch thinks it could complete major infrastructure projects in New Mexico and South Carolina during calendar year 2024, the agency said Tuesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management’s top priorities for 2024 include final testing of a new underground ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico; […]

As the annual Academy Awards prepares to honor a movie on the life of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) hopes people who run the Hollywood movie business might also focus some attention on radiation victims from the Manhattan Project’s nuclear testing program. “The Oppenheimer film tells a compelling story of these test programs,” […]

A longtime federal manager, Jimmy “Mac” McMillian, retires Feb. 29 an advisory board for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina heard Monday. McMillian, a member of senior executive service, has been assistant manager for infrastructure and environmental stewardship for Savannah River’s DOE Environmental Management office since February 2019. The “sad news” […]

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) on Wednesday confirmed that the Department of Justice is investigating her congressional campaign for allegedly spending campaign funds on a personal security detail. Bush, a progressive lawmaker who has advocated for cleaning up Manhattan Project-era radioactive contamination near her St. Louis-area district and compensating residents affected by it, confirmed the investigation in a […]

While Triad National Security’s program appears adequate to detect potentially combustible chemicals in transuranic waste from National Nuclear Security Administration work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a safety board wants to see improvement. That is the crux of a Jan. 19 Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) letter to Secretary of Energy  Jennifer […]

Departing officers of an advisory board for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said this week they are feeling less anxious about the National Nuclear Security Administration taking over the 310-square-mile property on Oct. 1. That’s when the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) , a semi-autonomous branch of DOE, is scheduled […]

Contractors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ St. Louis office have made headway in removing contaminated soil from the banks of Coldwater Creek and cleaning up contamination near an elementary school, a Corps spokesperson said by email Tuesday. Contractors for the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) program should finish excavating contaminated soil […]

The federal prosecutor for Eastern Washington state filed a complaint in federal district court accusing the Department of Energy’s landlord contractor for the Hanford Site of fraudulently padding labor charges for fire safety by millions of dollars. The case against Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS), a joint venture of Leidos, Centerra and Parsons, was announced […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have started the two-year effort to carve out a new underground panel for transuranic waste disposal at the salt mine near Carlsbad, N.M., the department said Tuesday. In late December, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) prime Salado Isolation Mining Contractors made its first cut into […]

A Department of Energy environmental contractor has finished preparing the Integrated Disposal Facility at the Hanford Site in Washington to store canisters of solidified low-level radioactive waste beginning in 2025, DOE said Tuesday. The Integrated Disposal Facility (IDF) was built in 2006 at the center of the Hanford complex. Now, the Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup […]

David Bowen, the top state regulator assigned to the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, has accepted a new job within the Washington Department of Ecology, the state agency said Tuesday. Bowen, who has been with Ecology since 2016 and led the Nuclear Waste Program since December 2020, has been appointed director of the agency’s central […]

The Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio plans to extend by up to a year an existing business deal with a New Mexico-based uranium enrichment services company, according to a federal online procurement notice. DOE’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office plans to extend the existing agreement with Louisiana Energy Services, so that it expires on Feb. […]

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled a longtime scientist and manager at the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories was not effectively fired by the prime contractor when given only 24 hours to decide whether to retire. A three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit ruled Friday Jan. 19 that Robert Hwang was […]

A stop work order, issued after a tool basket fell about 2,150 feet down the utility shaft at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, was lifted last month, according to a recent safety watchdog report. The stop work order triggered by the Nov. 20 accident was partly lifted Dec. 16, […]

The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, offline since September, should start heating up next month and resume treating sodium-bearing radioactive waste in March, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. The extended outage at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), held in part to replace carbon beds used to remove […]

A federal judge in East Tennessee granted a request last week by the cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site to delay more proceedings in a COVID-19 lawsuit until a higher court decides if the contractor is shielded from the suit. U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley ruled Jan. 18 that Amentum-led United […]