Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 […]

Centrus Energy on Monday announced Chief Executive Daniel Poneman will step down from leadership of the uranium broker and enrichment technology developer at the first of the year. He will be succeeded by Orano USA President and Chief Executive Amir Vexler on January 1. Poneman joined Centrus in March 2015 and over eight years returned […]

The Mercury Treatment Facility at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, which is about to become the responsibility of the site’s Amentum-led prime, is 50% complete, a DOE spokesperson said Friday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management spokesperson replied to an Exchange Monitor inquiry on the current status of the project. The […]

Contractor North Wind Group has finished putting up the structural steel for a 60,000-square-foot offsite research facility it is building for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site at the University of South Carolina-Aiken, the agency said Monday. “Since construction started about eight months ago, we have been making substantial progress,” on the Advanced Manufacturing […]

Based on a survey taken mid-year, 72% of the staff at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have a “high level of respect” for senior leaders, which is the best score on this question in about four years at the independent federal watchdog for Department of Energy nuclear weapon sites.  The figure reached 69% of […]

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.

The Department of Energy said this week early commissioning is underway for the much-anticipated Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, designed to triple underground airflow at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Testing commenced last month for some of the electrical cables that will supply power to the motors, fans and other equipment for […]

In a deal rumored for weeks, two of the largest players in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex will next year merge into a public company majority-owned by Jacobs shareholders. Jacobs is lead partner in about $3.7 billion worth of contracts overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, according to an online […]

On the day it announced plans to spin off its government sector to Amentum, earnings fell at Jacobs Solutions, Dallas, in the 4th quarter of its 2023 fiscal year, which the engineering, procurement and construction company, involved in the Department of Energy weapons complex, attributed to market fluctuations. Net earnings for the fiscal 2023 fourth […]

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 […]