Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants improvement in emergency response preparation at tank waste pretreatment facility at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions went through a simulated tornado drill last month at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s onsite […]

In observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, Weapons Complex Monitor will publish on Wednesday, Nov. 22. The next issue will be published on Friday, Dec. 1.

A Department of Energy contractor has removed cesium from about 698,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a DOE spokesperson said Tuesday. The fourth batch run at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) project was completed Oct. 27, the DOE spokesperson said in an email response to an Exchange […]

Two brothers in their twenties, one a former worker at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, were sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for their role in an uncle’s Mexico-based drug trafficking operation. Eduardo Reyes-Santana, 26 of Kennewick, Wash., a commercial driver and union member who worked two years at the […]

With the holidays approaching, the Department of Energy’s request for information for potential carbon-free power projects at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been extended until Jan. 2, the agency said Wednesday. Information on the clean energy potential of the 310-square-mile federal complex is now due by 12 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday […]

The Government Accountability Office expects to publish several major reports on Department of Energy nuclear remediation issues over the next several months, according to the congressional watchdog agency. Nathan Anderson, director of the Natural Resources & Environment unit for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said between now and December a report on H Canyon at […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 36 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during October, according to the agency’s public website for the facility. The figure is current as of Wednesday Nov. 15. There is typically about a two-week lag time between a shipment arriving at the Waste Isolation Pilot […]

The Amentum-led remediation prime at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee will finish construction of the Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, DOE announced Friday.  Earlier in the week, DOE confirmed to Exchange Monitor the agency will not again extend a contract with a joint venture of APTIM and […]

During its quarterly earnings report next week, Dallas-based Jacobs could unveil a deal to sell its government contracting business to the owners of another major player in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex, according to Reuters. Jacobs, an international engineering, construction and procurement contractor, “is in advanced talks” with Virginia-based Amentum, according to “people familiar […]

The Department of Energy’s 2023 budget was extended through Jan. 19 by another short-term spending bill, which Congress passed this week before leaving Washington for their Thanksgiving recess. President Joe Biden (D) signed the House-authored bill on Thursday, the same day the Senate passed it 87-11. The House passed the bill Tuesday 336-95. This is […]

The Department of Energy’s inventory of legacy transuranic waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been winnowed to the point where the last such shipment to the underground disposal site in New Mexico could be only five years away, a federal advisory committee heard last week. Most of Savannah River’s defense-related legacy […]

The Department of Energy could roll out a draft solicitation by Dec. 31 for a small business to provide technical support services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the agency said Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management could publish a draft request for proposals (RFP) sometime within 15-to-45 […]

A 66-year-old Arkansas man who allegedly drove his car through an outer gate at Duke Power’s Oconee nuclear plant in South Carolina and tried to run over security staff was arrested and charged with attempted murder, local law enforcement said over the weekend. Doyle Wayne Whisenhunt, of Lockesburg, Ark., was arrested Saturday evening, at an […]

The Department of Energy’s $8-billion-plus nuclear cleanup branch is getting positive results from its early forays into artificial intelligence and machine learning, Jeff Avery, the No. 2 at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, told a National Academies panel Tuesday. New technology is playing a growing role at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Avery,  principal deputy […]

While it remains a critic of nuclear energy, the Natural Resources Defense Council confirmed Wednesday it is scaling back its legal work on nuclear issues. “While NRDC is paring back our nuclear litigation work, we will continue to advocate for better, safer, cheaper solutions to climate change,” Mark Drajem, a spokesperson for the Natural Resources […]

During a Senate hearing last week, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) pressed an Environmental Protection Agency official to prioritize remediation of radioactive contamination at the West Lake Landfill Superfund Site in Bridgeton, Mo. “It’s probably no coincidence that the folks who live in this area are not big-time donors to political parties, they’re not big-time party […]

Richard Driggs, most recently chief operating officer for Michael Baker International, has been appointed the new president and CEO OF Idaho Falls-based North Wind Group, the company said Monday. Driggs is a seasoned hand in the engineering and construction industry and brings more than 30 years of experience as chief executive and chief operating officer […]

The federal agency that provides outside safety advice to the Department of Energy still struggles with a “sustainable organizational culture and climate,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Inspector General said last week. Organizational culture leads the list of the most serious challenges facing the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) in fiscal 2024, the […]

A judge could decide by December the fate of a lawsuit about the Department of Energy’s years of allegedly illegal long-term nuclear-waste storage near Butte County. After hearing oral arguments Oct. 30 from the county, the state of Idaho and the U.S. Department of Justice on the government’s motion for dismissal of the county’s suit, […]

The U.S. Forest Service killed roughly 1,200 wild hogs on the grounds of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina during fiscal 2023, many of which were eaten by vultures, the site’s Citizens Advisory Board heard Monday. During his presentation to the Savannah River Site advisory board, forest manager DeVela Clark, also […]

Trials on the slate for this winter will follow-up successful tests, announced last week by the Department of Energy, of the first melter at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. Conducted on Oct. 26 and Oct. 30, the tests consisted of melting glass beads together to be poured into a cylindrical canister. The […]

The Department of Energy is taking public comment until Dec. 12 on its draft finding that certain radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory can be disposed of there as low- rather than high-level waste. The draft document “demonstrates that the Calcined Solids Storage Facility (CSSF) at closure after waste retrieval is not high-level radioactive […]

William (Bill) Badger, director of nuclear and environmental business development at Department of Energy contractor Amentum, drowned in Richland, Wash., after the car he was driving went into a local marina, according to the coroner in Benton County, Wash. The fatal accident was first reported Wednesday by the Tri-City Herald newspaper, which said the accident […]

A federal district judge in East Tennessee ruled this week that employees fired after refusing COVID-19 vaccinations by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site cleanup prime, cannot pursue their litigation as a class action suit. “Given the number of individualized inquiries necessary to resolve each plaintiff’s claim, a class action would quickly devolve into […]

Contractor North Wind Portage has now removed 14 million tons of uranium mill tailings from the Moab, Utah site near the Colorado River, the Department of Energy announced this week. Removing 14 million of the 16 million tons of tailings from the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project is a big step toward remediation […]

Earnings rose at BWXT Technologies,  Lynchburg, Va., in the third quarter, which the nuclear services company attributed mostly to its commercial business, offset by staffing up its government business in preparation for future work and an increase in corporate expenses.  BWX Technologies Chief Executive Rex Gevenden said the company’s quarterly performance was “slightly ahead of […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, currently lacking a quorum, said Wednesday it has filled one of three big staff vacancies by hiring a U.S. Export Import Bank manager as its new executive director of operations. Mary Jean Buhler, chief financial officer at the Export Import Bank, will become the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board […]

Three long-serving feds at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management have been formally appointed to key management roles on a permanent basis, the No. 2 official at the nuclear cleanup branch said recently. Greg Sosson will become associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations effective immediately, said Jeff Avery, DOE Environmental Management […]