Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

In a follow-up to prior reports, the Government Accountability Office said again Friday that using concrete-like grout would be a cheaper way to solidify the less-radioactive tank waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has treated 4 million gallons of its radioactive salt waste […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear remediation office should draft clearer guidance to differentiate contractor work that directly advances cleanup from other chores, the Government Accountability Office said in a report published Monday. Until it does, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) lacks a clear understanding of how much of its multi-billion-dollar budget directly hastens cleanup, […]

A federal district judge in Idaho has penciled in an Oct. 30 hearing date to consider the U.S. government’s motion to throw out Butte County’s lawsuit against the Department of Energy. The case, scheduled for 11 a.m. Mountain Time at the Pocatello, Idaho federal courthouse, will be presided over by U.S. District Court Judge David […]

The Department of Energy Waste Isolation Pilot Plant received 473 shipments of transuranic waste during fiscal 2023, the most in about a decade, a DOE manager said Tuesday during a public meeting in New Mexico. The 473 shipments for the 12 months ended Sept. 30 is the most since before February 2014 when an underground […]

The Department of Energy has extended through January existing contracts for environmental cleanup and depleted uranium work at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. The contracts for both Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, which handles decontamination and decommissioning, and Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services, which does the depleted uranium work, will now run through […]

Still deadlocked over whether to spend the maximum allowed by a law passed this spring, Congress on Friday still had not passed a bill to keep federal agencies open in the new government fiscal year that begins Sunday. On Friday, even before it failed by a 198-232 vote to pass in the chamber in which […]

New Mexicans who took part in a hybrid public meeting Friday, largely expressed support for a new state permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant while urging the New Mexico Environment Department to be vigilant in monitoring Department of Energy compliance. Too often from 2011 through 2018, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) managers under […]

North Wind Group has appointed Shayne Naugle as the new North Wind Services president, although there is no word yet on a successor to the parent company’s CEO Christopher Leichtweis, who announced plans to step down this year. North Wind announced the promotion of Naugle, who previously led the company’s Northeast operations, to president of […]

States agencies and other entities will receive a combined $54 million worth of funding for programs supporting the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup work, the federal agency said Thursday. For starters, Pittsburgh-based NuVision Engineering will receive $3.5 million for an independent comparison of the DOE nuclear cleanup program with governmental counterparts for the United Kingdom, […]

Crews at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site plan next week to open up a contaminated waste box recently returned to South Carolina from the agency’s underground disposal site in New Mexico, a federal advisory board heard Tuesday. These specific drums initially contained debris waste sent to the Savannah River Site from the shuttered […]

The Department of Energy and Bechtel National should make several upgrades to the chemical safety program for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to DOE’s enforcement wing. While Bechtel and subcontractor Waste Treatment Completion Co. have a “generally adequate” chemical safety program, until key improvements are made, […]

The BWX Technologies-led nuclear remediation contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management have inked an eight-year task order for the next stages of cleanup, the site’s Citizens Advisory Board heard Tuesday. Michael Budney, DOE’s operations manager for the Savannah River nuclear cleanup, said the […]

About 75% of the motor vehicle fleet at the Nevada National Security Site is powered by either electricity or alternate fuels, according to the just-released annual environmental report for 2022. The former nuclear testing site also gets more than a third of its electricity from carbon-free sources, according to the 270-page report prepared by prime […]

A Department of Energy environmental remediation contractor has taken down the second nuclear reactor on the central campus of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the agency said Tuesday. Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) has finished tearing down the Low Intensity Test Reactor, which is also known as building 3005. Demolition of the […]

There will be no slowdown in nuclear cleanup next autumn when the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management gives up its landlord role at the Savannah River Site, a citizens group heard Tuesday. “What we are not transferring are any of the EM [environmental management] missions,” Michael Budney, operations manager for DOE’s Office of […]

The Department of Justice and a pair of contractor teams are still waiting for the Department of Energy to take definitive action on a potential $45-billion deal for Hanford Site radioactive waste management in Washington state, according to a new court filing. That’s the gist of a three-page status report filed Thursday by the Department […]

The Department of Energy has $19 million in grant funding available for disadvantaged communities affected by decades of nuclear work, the agency said in a Tuesday press release. Comments on the draft funding opportunity announcement for DOE’s Community Capacity Building Grant Program are due by Oct. 10, the agency said in the press release.The program […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch only expects to issue one solicitation over the next six months, for remediation of the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York, the agency said in a Wednesday procurement update. The agency expects the final RFP for the Phase 1B Deactivation and Demolition at West Valley will […]

With no stopgap funding plan imminent and a Sept. 30 deadline looming, the Department of Energy and other feds are reacquainting themselves with contingency plans to carry out in case of a government shutdown. At the Exchange Monitor deadline, House Republicans, still arguing amongst themselves over what should go into a continuing budget resolution to […]

The Department of Energy has so far delivered 12 shipments of down blended plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to a public waste database. The most recent shipment that DOE has made public arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near […]

A citizens group involved with talks that led to a new draft operating permit for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., plans to keep an eye on how the New Mexico Environment Department enforces the deal. Announced in August, the new 10-year hazardous waste permit for the deep geologic repository […]

The Department of Energy and the New Mexico Environment Department could bring in a mediator to help negotiate a plan to control a hexavalent chromium plume at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, an advisory panel heard Wednesday. Managers for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management in Los Alamos and the New Mexico Environment Department told the […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has launched its market research for up to $40 million worth of environmental restoration work around the Superfund site in Maywood, N.J., according to a procurement notice published online Friday, Sept. 15. A sources sought notice was issued online in the Systemwide Awards Management website (SAM.gov) for small businesses […]

The Department of Energy’s enforcement arm has told two contractors it will investigate a fatal tree clearing accident in August near the Central Training Facility at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. In a pair of Sept. 8 letters, the Office of Enforcement within DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments informed East Tennessee Mechanical Contractors and […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 58 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during August, with all but a half-dozen coming from the Idaho National Laboratory, according to the latest figures available on its public website. The data indicate the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) continues to experience its busiest […]

A Hanford contractor is trying to avoid a repeat of a July incident where overdue inspections for equipment resulted in a stop-work order at the site’s fire department, a federal safety board said. Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, the site’s Leidos-led landlord contractor that oversees firefighting and other services at the shuttered DOE nuclear-weapons site, restored […]

The legacy waste cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has resumed excavating corrugated metal pipe after suspending work in August because of missing paperwork, a company official told a federal advisory board Wednesday. “Gaps in paperwork” for training were found and, as a result, a “stop work” […]

After weeks of inspections, it appears Area 25 of the Nevada Nuclear Security Site avoided significant damage due to August’s tropical rains from Hurricane Hilary, a Department of Energy citizens advisory board heard Wednesday. Area 25, which includes Jackass Flats, is a 250-mile chunk of the Nevada Nuclear Security Site, and it largely avoided the […]