Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The story “With Los Alamos contract extension, N3B management team overhauled, Lebak returns to HII” [Weapons Complex Monitor, Vol. 34, No. 25] should have said Jerry O’Leary’s new role as senior technical adviser planning Technical Area-21 cleanup includes characterization and remediation of legacy waste.

Stakeholders have agreed to a deal for a new 10-year draft permit for the Department of Energy’s underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste near Carlsbad, N.M., the New Mexico Environment Department said late Tuesday  Various stakeholders had requested a hearing on the new Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) permit, but the deal announced Tuesday […]

Despite occasional glitches, a $1.4-billion plant to solidify liquid sodium-bearing radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory has processed 21,000 gallons during its first two-and-a-half months of regular operations, the Department of Energy said June 23. Since starting radiological operations April 11, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) has had “intermittent pauses to perform various […]

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, wants an oversight hearing on “misleading” statements Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm made to the panel in April about her stock ownership. “During the hearing, Secretary Granholm claimed she did not own any personal financial stocks, when in fact, she held […]

The Department of Energy’s solicitation for completion of deactivation and demolition work at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state should hit the streets by the end of December, the agency said Tuesday. But the West Valley Demonstration Project Phase 1B cleanup is the only major request for proposals expected from the DOE […]

The Department of Energy has extended the deadline until Oct. 9 for companies interested in recycling about 6,400 tons of radiologically surface-contaminated nickel from the gaseous diffusion plant at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the new deadline in a June 22 notice on a federal procurement website. DOE […]

Summer is here and it has been a hot and in some cases smoky weather week for some facilities connected with the Department of Energy’s weapons complex.  Workers at a commercially-owned waste disposal facility in West Texas and DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., coped with dangerous heat warnings issued by the […]

After seven months working for a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, longtime federal hand Candice Robertson is returning to the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management as a senior adviser. Robertson’s first day back with the nuclear cleanup office will be Monday, July 3, Jeff Avery, DOE’s principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental […]

The acting head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office is still awaiting a report from federal field managers at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on turning over landlord responsibilities to the National Nuclear Security Administration by 2025.  After his presentation Thursday to the Energy Facilities Contractors Group in Washington, William (Ike) […]

While it is hardly a secret that Department of Energy weapons complex sites are badly in need of fresh blood to compensate for a wave of retirements, a recent analysis by a contractor group quantifies the scope of the situation. The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG), which holds its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., later […]

The GOP-controlled House Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a fiscal 2024 energy and water development spending bill that would keep funds for the Department of Energy’s Cold War and Manhattan Project cleanup at roughly $8.3 billion. The final committee vote was 34-to-24. The full House had not scheduled the bill for a vote at deadline […]

The Department of Energy favors continued reliance on Mother Nature, with monitoring and other steps, to clean up groundwater within large chunks of the former uranium enrichment property at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, a federal advisory committee heard last Wednesday. Largely leaving the contamination alone and checking it regularly to “attenuate” or reduce […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 28 shipments of transuranic waste during May, according to its website. Twenty shipments during the month came from the Idaho National Laboratory, four from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, three from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and one […]

The Department of Energy last week gave feedback to contractors on its expectations for a national small business procurement for nuclear cleanup, a solicitation where bids are now due July 10. In the latest batch of questions and answers for the Small Business Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning and Removal procurement, DOE’s cleanup office fielded inquiries on […]

Brad Smith has replaced Kim Lebak as president and general manager of the legacy waste cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lebak is heading back to Huntington Ingalls Industries, the corporate parent of the team’s lead partner. Lebak shared the news herself in letters on June 5 and June […]

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Grouting low-level radioactive waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, fully staffing a federal safety watchdog and other topics generated attention here Thursday at an annual meeting of a federal contractors group Thursday. The DOE’s acting head of the Office of Environmental Management, William (Ike) White told the Energy […]

Wrap Up:WCS faces 2024 permit renewal; experts study nuke war’s enviro impact; DOE awards $2M grant to Paducah chamber Waste Control Specialists, the commercial radioactive waste storage and disposal site in Andrews County, Texas, will be up for permit renewal later this year, a state regulator told Exchange Monitor’s Radwaste Summit 2.0 last week in […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has not been aggressive enough in cleaning up a hexavalent chromium plume within the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the head of the New Mexico Environment Department said last week. DOE and its contractors “have denied New Mexicans and tribal members timely and effective clean-up of hexavalent chromium […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico was among numerous federal entities that suffered a data breach Thursday as part of an international cyber hack involving the “”MOVEit” software. “Upon learning that records from two DOE entities were compromised in the global cyberattack on the file-sharing software MOVEit Transfer, DOE took […]

The story “EnergySolutions eyes state approval for DUF6 disposal in 2024,” [Weapons Complex Monitor Vol. 34 No. 23] should have reported the Utah Department of Environmental Quality has not scheduled a permit modification hearing yet for EnergySolutions.

A House Appropriations subcommittee led by a lawmaker with a local interest in the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee on Thursday voted to keep nuclear cleanup spending roughly $8.3 billion in fiscal 2024, sending the measure onto the full committee. The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Chuck […]

Christopher Leichtweis, the president and CEO of Idaho Falls-based North Wind Group, plans to leave the company by the end of the year, the company announced Tuesday. Leichtweis, who has led the Department of Energy contractor since 2013, will remain on through Dec. 31, “to ensure a smooth and orderly transition,” North Wind said in […]

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control could start taking public comments as early as this fall on groundwater cleanup for the Department of Energy’s area of the sprawling Santa Susana Field Laboratory, according to a report released Thursday. The California Agency on Thursday issued its long-awaited Final Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for the 2,850-acre […]

One major COVID-19-related lawsuit in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex ended this week when an appeals court ruled there was nothing much to resolve while another, on the other side of the country, is restarting.  A case involving DOE’s COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Hanford Site in Washington state is effectively over, a panel […]

The Department of Energy’s $45-billion liquid waste contract awarded in April for the Hanford Site in Washington state “was improper and is set aside,” a federal judge said in a public one-page document Tuesday. “Performance of the contract is enjoined,” U.S.  Court of Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn said of the Integrated Tanks Contract […]

A House Appropriations panel wants to give the federal government’s independent safety watchdog for nuclear weapon sites almost as much money as the White House requested, bill published this week show. On Thursday, the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee chaired by Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn), passed a draft budget bill that would provide […]

An Idaho county this week urged a federal judge to reject the federal governent’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit against the Department of Energy over ongoing use of the Idaho National Laboratory as a repository for spent nuclear fuel. Butte County, which says DOE should shoulder more of the social and economic impact of decades […]