Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

With maintenance almost complete, the Department of Energy expects to restart operations of an Idaho National Laboratory treatment facility for radioactive sodium-bearing waste early in 2024. Workers for DOE ‘s Jacobs-led environmental cleanup contractor have replaced mercury-laden beds of granular activated carbon in two vessels of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), which has been […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., remains on pace to have its best calendar year performance since it returned to service in 2017 following an underground accident three years earlier. The nation’s only deep geologic disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste has received 441 shipments between Jan. 1 and Nov. […]

The Department of Energy’s environmental prime at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee said in a  court filing last week that as a U.S. contractor it is shielded from a lawsuit brought under a state law by a former employee fired after refusing to be vaccinated for COVID-19. In November, U.S. District Court Judge Charles […]

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has given the U.S. government until this Friday, Dec. 15, to answer a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by an environmental group over documents concerning a low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes agreed to the […]

President Joe Biden (D) was set to sign a fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that authorizes raises for nuclear weapons programs and flat spending for nuclear-weapons cleanup but no major changes for civilian nuclear energy policies. This week, with overwhelming bipartisan majorities, both chambers of Congress approved the bill, a compromise version of separate […]

The Department of Energy’s cleanup office boss at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has been selected to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s field operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a DOE executive said this week. Michael Mikolanis, who has led DOE’s cleanup office at Los Alamos since July […]

With publication of a draft solicitation Thursday, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch is shopping for a new small business to provide technical support for its project office serving the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management announced its draft request for proposals (RFP) for a […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board representatives held eight briefings for congressional committees or staffers in fiscal 2023, according to a recently-released financial report. According to its financial report to congress, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) also held met with other groups: the Hanford Advisory Board, Savannah River Site Watch, Citizens for Nuclear […]

The Government Accountability Office said Thursday the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup wing should reach deals with key federal entities that rely on H-Canyon at DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina Site to process spent reactor fuel. H-Canyon is the nation’s only nuclear chemical separations facility and the DOE Office of Environmental Management plans […]

HANFORD SITE, WASH. — Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site filled its first canister with melted non-radioactive glass last week, the site’s leaders announced Monday. “It was not obvious to everyone except this team that we’d be here today,” said the Department of Energy’s Hanford Manager Brian Vance at a Monday ceremony at […]

Jacobs’ government contracting and cybersecurity businesses, which are expected to merge with Virginia-based Amentum in 2024, account for more than a third of the revenue at Jacobs, according to material released following the Nov. 21 consolidation announcement. Depending on the way it’s counted, Critical Mission Solutions with the cyber and intelligence business line were responsible […]

A unified 2024 National Defense Authorization Act unveiled this week provides about what President Joe Biden sought for cleanup of Department of Energy nuclear weapon sites, but won’t expand a compensation program for sick nuclear workers. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) report published Wednesday by a House-Senate conference committee, does not reauthorize the Radiation […]

Some cleanup will continue at DOE’s Building 324 at the Hanford Site in Washington state even as the government takes public comment on proposed changes to the work, federal officials told an advisory committee Tuesday. Department of Energy Hanford Site manager Brian Vance and David Einan, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 10 Superfund manager […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board should focus on providing the Department of Energy with independent safety advice and let its new incoming operations director deal with the board’s daily grind, a new federal report said. A recently-released Office of Inspector General report on management challenges at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Defense Nuclear […]

Personnel at the Hanford site in Washington state have prepared nearly 800,000 gallons of liquid radioactive waste for conversion into glass form in 2025, the site’s federal manager said Tuesday. Contractor Washington River Protection Solutions has started its fifth batch run at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) project, Department of Energy site manager Brian […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office would mostly stay hands-off off any clean energy generation that comes to the Hanford Site in Washington state, an official said Tuesday.  DOE’s Hanford office will be “limited to being a good landlord” federal manager Brian Vance said Tuesday at a meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board. About […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments between now and Feb. 29, 2024, on storm water discharge rules affecting the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and surrounding areas. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to fix water quality standards violations raised in a petition by a Taos-based water advocacy […]

The Department of Energy and its prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico are investigating a Nov. 20 accident in which a basket of tools and material fell roughly 2,200 feet to the bottom of the new underground utility shaft. “All work on the Utility Shaft was immediately paused and the […]

Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, the Department of Energy prime that acts as city manager of the Hanford Site in Washington state, is shopping for a subcontractor to overhaul aging power distribution lines and related infrastructure. The work, in the 100 Area near the Columbia River, involves tearing down or refurbishing old infrastructure and installing […]

Don’t look for the Department of Energy to issue its final solicitation for a potential $3-billion cleanup project at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state prior to January, DOE said this week. In a special notice dated Tuesday, the DOE Office of Environmental Management said the final request for proposals (RFP) for […]

Henry Kissinger, a Cold War diplomat and presidential adviser called one of the more consequential and controversial figures of the 20th century, died Thursday at age 100, national media reported. Kissinger, who spoke with a European accent, became “an unlikely media star” during his time as secretary of state for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald […]

The Environmental Protection Agency is considering a variance to allow the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington to ship 2,000 gallons of radioactive tank waste to commercial disposal sites for solidification. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposes to issue DOE a “treatability variance” from Land Disposal Restrictions, according to a Tuesday Federal Register […]

A federal judge in Tennessee refused to throw out a lawsuit by a former employee for the Department of Energy’s environmental cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge Site who was fired after refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Plaintiff Yolonda Riggs, a former lead radiation technician for United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), was fired by […]

Bosses at some weapons complex contractors expect the proposed merger of Amentum and the government contracting wing of Jacobs Solutions will hurt competition on federal nuclear cleanup jobs — and cite a $45-billion liquid waste contract at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site as an example. Exchange Monitor discussed the announced merger by phone Monday […]

Should the proposed merger announced last week between Amentum and Jacobs Solutions’s government contracting business become reality, most Department of Energy nuclear cleanup contracts will be held by teams where the lead partner has a publicly-traded corporate parent. That is based on a cursory review of contracts, valued at nearly $1 billion or more, which […]

Three more plaintiffs have pulled out of the COVID-19-related lawsuit brought by some employees of the prime contractor at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, leaving only two. Plaintiffs Stephanie Bruffey, Gregory Sheets and William Webb have agreed to drop their legal claims against UT-Battelle, the joint venture between the University […]

The Department of Energy has successfully gotten bidders on the uranium hexafluoride conversion work and other services at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky will keep their offers open through Dec. 20, two industry sources said Monday. Teams vying for the decade-long Portsmouth / Paducah Project Office (PPPO) Operations and […]