Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Due to vacancies, the Savannah River operations office for DOE nuclear cleanup is not doing safety system oversight assessments as often as specified in agency guidance, according to a report out this month from the DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments. It has become a common refrain across the weapons complex, and now, staffing holes are […]

The Department of Energy’s “fast-track, design-build approach” at the multibillion-dollar Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state resulted in cost increases and schedule delays, according to an Office of Inspector General probe of whistleblower allegations. The report by DOE Inspector General Teri Donaldson was drafted back in August 2020 but […]

It is time for states with Department of Energy nuclear sites and the agency’s cleanup office to consider social media’s role in distributing information, and disinformation, during emergencies, according to a report from the National Governors Association. “With the proliferation of smartphones and social media, it is critical that intergovernmental partners and the public have […]

Feds and Washington state representatives are discussing plans for a research permit for grouting 2,000 gallons of radioactive tank waste from the Department of Energy Hanford’s Site, a state spokesman said Wednesday. The ongoing mediation over Hanford cleanup, dubbed “holistic talks” by the parties, should not delay a draft research, development, and demonstration permit application […]

A half-dozen employees suing the Department of Energy’s operations contractor for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee are making headway in settling their case involving mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for most workers, and a federal judge said this week he wants the matter resolved soon.  “The court notes that, at this point, almost ten months […]

At the Department of Energy’s request, bidders on a major nuclear cleanup contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio have agreed to keep their bids on the table for 60 days longer than planned, industry sources said this week. Within the past week, DOE procurement officials asked teams to keep their contract offers for the […]

A federal magistrate judge in New Mexico has been asked to give the state environmental regulator and the Department of Energy 90 more days to continue settlement talks over changes to a consent decree governing nuclear cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Citing continued progress, the parties asked U.S. Magistrate Judge John Robbenhaar on […]

The top boss for the Department of Energy’s prime contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina said this week he expects to see draft plans soon detailing how the National Nuclear Security Administration will take control of the complex from the DOE Office of Environmental Management. “The transition planning is well underway,” Stuart […]

After close to $1.5 billion spent, the long-anticipated Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory is treating radioactive waste, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. Initially, the Integrated Waste Treatment United (IWTU) will treat a mix of 90% simulant and 10% sodium-bearing liquid waste from tanks at the laboratory’s Idaho Nuclear Technology and […]

The Department of Energy is seeking expressions of interest for companies that could deploy established technology to recover up to 6,400 tons of radiologically surface-contaminated nickel from the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the agency said Wednesday. Information gleaned through the procurement notice, issued online, will help DOE determine if it’s worthwhile to clean up the […]

A team led by BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., won a potentially 10-year, $45-billion liquid-waste cleanup contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Department of Energy said Thursday. The winning team, Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure, consists of BWXT, Amentum and Fluor.  The Integrated Tank Disposition Contract awarded by DOE’s Office of Environmental […]

The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory has resumed running simulant as the contractor awaits final federal approval to start mixing in liquid sodium-bearing radioactive waste, a DOE spokesperson said Wednesday. The federal agency and its cleanup contractor at the site, Jacobs-led Idaho Environmental Coalition, hope to be operating  […]

The Department of Energy and a contractor await permission from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to return a problem transuranic waste container, now in a parking lot at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, back to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, managers in Carlsbad, N.M., said recently. The issue came up […]

Randall Hendrickson, acting head of regulatory and policy affairs for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office, is leaving the government to take a job in private industry, the agency said this week. Hendrickson’s departure was announced in an email to DOE Office of Environmental Management staff by Jeff Avery, DOE’s principal deputy assistant secretary […]

HPM Corp., the Kennewick, Wash.,-based company with a $152-million Department of Energy contract to provide employee medical services at the Hanford Site in Washington state is being sold to California-based WorkCare, the parties confirmed Wednesday. The Tri-City Herald newspaper reported Tuesday HPM Corp., longtime holder of the Hanford Occupational Medical Contract, is being sold to […]

The Department of Energy is extending Swift & Staley as site services contractor at the Paducah Site in Kentucky through July 2024, the agency said in a procurement notice this week. The move is meant to buy the DOE Office of Environmental Management time to recompete a contract agreement for the landlord services award made […]

The federal government will respond in fewer than two weeks to New Mexico’s request for major changes to the Department of Energy’s long-term transuranic waste disposal program in the state, a senior agency official said at a forum this week. The New Mexico Environment Department is considering a new 10-year hazardous waste permit for the […]

The Kansas City District Environmental Programs Branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will host its annual spring industry call at 10 a.m. Central Time on April 27, according to a notice on a federal procurement website. The call will update the status of current and upcoming solicitations and discuss overall workload, according to […]

Bechtel National chose an executive who led construction of two new nuclear power reactors in Georgia to temporarily run the Waste Immobilization and Treatment Plant project at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the company said late Thursday. Effective immediately John Atwell is the acting project director for the Waste Immobilization and […]

The head of the new prime at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico aims to meet the Department of Energy and dispose of 400 shipments of transuranic waste at the site in 2023. Ken Harrawood, president and project manager for Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, told a Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Public […]

With the exception of a couple of projects at Europe’s largest and most complex nuclear site, the United Kingdom’s short-term cleanup goals for radioactive waste cleanup remain largely on target, the country’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said in its mid-2023 fiscal year report, published Friday. Timelines for certain cleanup projects at Sellafield Limited, a Nuclear Decommissioning […]

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is proceeding with previously-announced plans to seek bidders seeking to run Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, the federal Crown corporation said March 31. Canadian National Energy Alliance, an SNC-Lavalin-led team with Jacobs and Fluor as minority partners, currently runs daily operations of Canada’s national labs under a 10-year contract set to expire […]

An investigative office within the Department of Energy is looking into a December 2022 accident at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina that resulted in an employee of the prime contractor having a finger amputated. The enforcement unit within DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments told Savannah River Nuclear Solutions president and CEO Stuart MacVean […]

A few days before Christmas, the Department of Energy, together with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed to the broad framework for completing radioactive tank waste cleanup at the Savannah River Site. The primary goal of the revised Federal Facility Agreement, announced Tuesday, is to […]

Following a December court decision, the Department of Energy is officially canceling the solicitation that resulted in incumbent Swift & Staley winning — and then eventually losing — a new set-aside contract two years earlier for landlord services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. “DOE has determined that canceling this solicitation is in the best […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is still looking for a successor to its first executive director of operations, who left in August, the board said in a recent report to Congress. “The board is actively recruiting to fill that vacancy in 2023,” according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s 33rd Annual Report to […]

Valerie McCain, the Bechtel project manager in charge of building the Department of Energy’s multibillion-dollar waste vitrification plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, died unexpectedly, the company announced this week. “It is with great sadness that we share the news that Valerie McCain, project director of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant and […]

A U.S. appeals court recently upheld a nation-wide injunction against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for most federal workers. The ruling 10-6 ruling on March 23 from a majority of judges on the New Orleans-based U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, who heard oral arguments in September, upheld the January 2022 preliminary injunction issued […]