Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Department of Energy’s contention that the state of Washington lacks authority to order installation of decontamination showers at a waste disposal site won’t block a larger permit modification for the facility, state and federal agencies agreed last week. “Due to the critical need for the timely execution of Direct-Feed Low Activity Waste at Hanford,” […]

The long-planned new air-intake shaft at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has been excavated to its final depth of 2,275 feet, the agency said Tuesday. Completion of the 26-feet-wide shaft is a 2023 priority for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) 26 miles […]

The head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy hopes the agency can select its first clean power project at the Idaho National Laboratory within a year. “A year from today” is the target, Kathryn Huff, DOE’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy, told reporters on the sidelines of the Idaho lab’s Cleanup to […]

Shipments of transuranic waste to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico from Idaho National Laboratory could decline in 2024, according to a recent federal safety board update. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad receives waste drums from the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), as […]

A first-of-its kind facility to convert sodium-bearing waste at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory into a solid form, is likely to stay offline for maintenance at least a few more weeks, an advisory board heard Wednesday. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) is using a maintenance outage that began in September to replace […]

An advocacy group has gone to federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking to force the Environmental Protection Agency to hand over documents that led to approval of a new low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed suit Oct. 19 in the […]

Two teams fighting over the prized $45-billion Integrated Tank Contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state, filed updated proposals with the Department of Energy during the past week, according to legal filings Thursday. BWX-Technologies-led Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure as well as AtkinsRéalis Nuclear-led Hanford Tank Disposition Alliance filed their revised contract proposals […]

In a return to pre-pandemic practice, the Department of Energy said last week it will vet management teams in person for the next $3 billion cleanup contract at the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York. In a special notice, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said it would hold its oral interviews and problem […]

The APTIM-Amentum Alaska Decommissioning joint venture has won a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contract worth $95.5 million over six years to take down an old reactor at Fort Greely, Alaska, Amentum said last week. The Army Corps Baltimore District awarded the contract to decommission and dismantle the SM-1A Reactor Facility, Amentum said in a […]

Inés Triay, a former Department of Energy assistant secretary for environmental management, was appointed interim dean of Florida International University’s College of Engineering and Computing and the executive director of the university’s Applied Research Center. The university announced Triay’s appointment in a Tuesday press release. She has been at Florida International and a top manager […]

Federal appeals judges on Wednesday heard arguments about whether the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories prime contractor forced out a 25-year scientist and manager by giving him only a day to decide whether to resign or undergo a performance improvement program. Plaintiff Robert Hwang, a Ph. D. formerly at the lab, “was fearful he […]

Fluor subsidiary Stork UK has landed a three-year contract to provide inspection and quality assurance services to Sellafield Limited’s nuclear site in the United Kingdom, Fluor said in a Thursday press release. The new contract is scheduled to start in November and has two single-year follow-on option periods, Fluor said in the release. The announcement […]

Jessie Hill Roberson, a nuclear fixture for more than 40 years, called it a career Wednesday when she retired as a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  Now, she plans to take three months or so to decompress from about 14 years with the board, spread over various terms dating back to 1999. […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could counter a dramatic spike in its environmental liability by using new management practices at the 19 nuclear-weapon sites it is cleaning up, Congress’ investigative arm said this week. The secretary of the Army should also ensure the Corps develops a lifecycle cost estimate for the Formerly Utilized Sites […]

The story “DOE takes comment on Hanford 5-year plan” [Weapons Complex Monitor, Vol. 34, No. 39] should have said the document covers the Hanford Site over five years, between fiscal 2024 and 2028.

The vice president of Holtec’s small modular reactor business is excited about the prospect of developing such units at the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. “The details remain [to be worked out] as far as the exact timing and the financial conditions,” Tom Marcille, vice president and chief nuclear officer at Holtec International SMR,” said […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., had another busy month by post-2014 standards, receiving 48 shipments, with the vast majority coming from Idaho National Laboratory. According to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)’s public website, the underground salt mine received 43 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste from the Idaho lab, […]

The Department of Energy Tuesday issued requests for information from potential developers of carbon-free power projects at the Idaho National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At Savannah River, four tracts of 2,000 acres or more on relatively flat land are available for potential clean energy projects, according to DOE’s Oct. 17 […]

The Department of Energy has chosen a Virginia-based small business for a new occupational healthcare contract, worth up to $208 million over seven years, at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Hampton, Va.-based Inomedic Health Applications, a disadvantaged and woman-owned business, will provide round-the-clock healthcare service at the Hanford cleanup site. Inomedic Health, chosen from […]

A storage tank spoiled a batch of liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site that was thought to be clean enough for disposal, according to a contractor memo seen by the Exchange Monitor. The waste from Hanford’s tank farm, part of a less-radioactive tranche that is supposed to be solidified starting in 2025 by the […]

The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said recently it has completed the multi-million-dollar remediation of Middle DP Road in Los Alamos County. Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) said late last month that recent sampling confirmed “contamination removal and cleanup is complete,” according to […]

Jacobs’ government contracting segment, which is up for sale, accounted for 42% of the entire company’s business in fiscal year 2022, according to a recent investor presentation. Another Department of Energy weapons complex contractor, Amentum, is reportedly in the running to acquire Jacobs’ contracting business. There are at least two other suitors in the running, […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Wednesday it will not lump together litigation over a Department of Energy liquid waste contract potentially worth $45 billion with a separate government procurement case. In a brief order, the appeals circuit rejected a joint motion by BWX-Technologies-led Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure and […]

A federal district court in Ohio has assigned a Columbus attorney to act as mediator in a wrongful death lawsuit brought against current and former contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site. John Camillus was assigned Oct. 2 to be mediator in the case, surrounding the death of a 13-year-old Piketon, Ohio boy, Braden […]

A documentary film about Richland, Wash., and the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, which debuted during June at the famous Tribeca Film Festival in New York, is about to get screen time in Washington state. Richland is “a town that produced weapons-grade plutonium for decades, and its citizens have pridefully embraced their identity,” according to […]

The Department of Energy awarded North Wind Portage a nine-month, $1.9-million extension to continue various environmental chores at the DOE-controlled portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California, according to a recent procurement notice. Following the mid-September extension, the company’s current task order is now valued at $66.4-million. Without the extension, North Wind’s work […]

The Department of Energy is taking public comment between now and Nov. 10 on environmental remediation plans for the Hanford Site in Washington state over five years, between fiscal 2024 and 2028, according to a Tuesday news release. A hybrid public meeting to gather more public feedback is slated for Oct. 24 at 5:30 p.m. […]

The Department of Energy and its New Mexico regulator could be close to reaching a deal to replace the 2016 Compliance Order on Consent that governs most cleanup at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to a federal court filing this week. The parties Tuesday sought and received an extension from a federal judge in […]