Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

By John Stang Hanford might not finish solidifying its most radioactive tank wastes until 2062 to 2084, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report released Thursday. Right now, Hanford’s legal deadline is 2052 to solidify the 56 million gallons of waste held in 177 underground tanks at the former plutonium production complex. Between 5 […]

In December, the Department of Energy’s $8-billion Office of Environmental Management completed what its head of field operations calls the “beta phase” of a new electronic “dashboard” for tracking nuclear remediation technology development. All of the research-and-development data run through Environmental Management (EM) headquarters in Washington, D.C., has been entered into the system, Nicole Nelson-Jean […]

The Department of Energy and its cleanup contractor at the Idaho National Laboratory this week resumed warming up a major facility to treat sodium-bearing radioactive waste, an agency spokesperson said. “Warmup resumed earlier this week,” the DOE spokesperson said in response to an Exchange Monitor inquiry. The agency has said previously the heat-up should take […]

This week’s news that Reinhard Knerr will leave his job as manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office to take a deputy manager post at the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office was unusual but not shocking, industry sources said Thursday. Knerr is the second permanent Carlsbad Field Office manager since the spring of 2019. Deputy […]

By the end of this month, the manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico will leave to become deputy manager of the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office in Lexington, Ky., an agency executive said Tuesday. Carlsbad manager Reinhard Knerr, responsible for overseeing the agency’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant since July 2020, is […]

Two members of congress from Missouri, a Republican senator and a House Democrat, want the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do more testing for radiological contamination at a St. Louis area school. “We write to urge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to conduct additional radioactive contaminant testing of Hazelwood School District’s properties,” […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., had its busiest month of 2022 during December, receiving 53 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste. Forty shipments originated from the Idaho National Laboratory, 12 came from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, one came from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. […]

While Department of Energy contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Co. is doing a good job on hazardous nuclear remediation within Building 324 at the Hanford Site in Washington state, it needs to tackle some safety risks, according to the agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments. Generally, the DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments said in a review published […]

Key parts of a pretreatment system for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant should hold up over decades, Department of Energy bosses and a contractor from the Hanford Site in Washington state told the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board last month.  Managers from DOE and Washington River Protection Solutions told the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety […]

Effective Jan. 29, longtime federal manager Randy Hendrickson will succeed Jay Mullis as the acting head of regulatory affairs and policy at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Mullis, who has filled the position for many months, will return to his job as manager of the cleanup field office at the Oak Ridge […]

The mayor of Carlsbad, N.M., Dale Janway, said in a Sunday newspaper column he wants the Department of Energy’s deep underground disposal site for transuranic waste to stay open for a long time and is wary of the New Mexico Environment Department gaining more clout over the future of the facility. “It is certainly our […]

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board inspectors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington spotted a questionable safety practice, and a reluctance to talk about it, at one of the tank farms last month, according to a recent report. “A resident inspector observed an event investigation meeting after workers in the SX tank farm […]

More than 20 companies expressed interest to the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management in landing a slice of various nuclear remediation projects set aside for small business. Twenty-one signed up by Dec. 20 to be on an “interested vendors” list, for the Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning and Removal procurement, according to a DOE Environmental […]

Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge plans this summer to hire a subcontractor to start site preparation for a new landfill to dispose of 2.2-million cubic yards of low-level waste at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, a federal spokesperson said Tuesday. “There are still several significant steps remaining,” before United Cleanup Oak […]

New Mexico and the Department of Energy are close to resolving the state’s lawsuit about cleanup rules for the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a federal judge Thursday granted the parties another 90 days to negotiate. Lawyers for the state and the Department of Justice told the U.S. District Court for New Mexico that the […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management last month suspended heat up of a long-anticipated waste treatment facility at the Idaho National Laboratory after a small leak of “non-radioactive, non-hazardous solids,” was discovered, DOE said Tuesday. The suspension came Dec. 29, 10 days after beginning warmup to prepare for radiological operations at the Integrated […]

Work crews at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky are making progress in building a new 3,500-square-foot emergency operations center at the former gaseous diffusion plant complex, DOE said Tuesday. The new, more modern center to house emergency management staff and monitor environmental conditions will replace the one set up in 1990 within […]

Incumbent Centerra Group has been awarded a new Security Services contract, potentially worth $1 billion over 10 years, at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The award, announced in a Thursday press release, is not a surprise. The DOE has been saying for many months it plans “corrective action” to its […]

The timeline to start converting low-level radioactive waste into glass at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has already been slowed by technical and workforce issues and more challenges could arise, a DOE manager told the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board. The Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant is a complex project and […]

Lynchburg, Va., -based BWX Technologies said Wednesday it has promoted Ronald (Chip) Whitford, Jr., to a senior vice president post succeeding Thomas McCabe, who will retire from the nuclear company this summer. Separately, the company has promoted Omar Meguid to chief digital officer, a new executive role that reports directly to CEO Rex Geveden, according […]

Jacobs-led Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership won 69% of its discretionary fee for cleanup work at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky during fiscal 2022, an improvement from its performance in fiscal 2021. Overall the contractor claimed 80% of its total potential award fee for 2022, according to an agency scorecard dated Dec. 28. […]

Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services earned 93% of its overall fee and roughly three-quarters of its subjective fee during fiscal 2022 under its depleted uranium hexafluoride contract at gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio and Kentucky, the Department of Energy said. The contractor won $1.7 million out of a potential $2.3 million or 74% of its subjective […]

The Department of Energy’s Fluor-led cleanup contractor for the Portsmouth Site in Ohio pocketed 93%, or $14 million, of $15 million in overall available fees in the second half of fiscal 2022, according to a scorecard released by the agency Dec. 28. Fluor‐BWXT Portsmouth took home all of the available $10.54 million in performance-based fees […]

The fiscal 2023 omnibus budget that the 117th Congress passed just before adjourning before Christmas includes $20 million for replacement of a middle school that closed in May 2019 due to concern over radiological contamination from the Department of Energy’s adjacent Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. The $20 million toward replacement of the Zahns Corner […]

In a majority opinion, a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found President Joe Biden overstepped his authority by using the Procurement Act to require virtually all federal contract workers be vaccinated against COVID-19. “The President asks this Court to ratify an exercise of proprietary authority that would […]

A federal judge in Eastern Washington, who twice allowed 314 employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to amend their complaint over government COVID-19 vaccination requirements, was justified in dismissing the case, Justice Department attorneys told the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals Dec. 23. Only seven of the plaintiffs in the David Donovan versus […]

By way of disclaimer, Wall Street gurus like to caution that past performance cannot predict future results. Nevertheless, here are a few Exchange Monitor observations — let’s not call them predictions — about where things stand at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) as 2023 begins. Congressional funding for the Office of […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board could be left without a quorum within 10 months if President Joe Biden fails to nominate and win Senate approval of at least one individual before the term ends for a long-serving member. It increasingly appears 2022 will draw to a close without the White House nominating anyone to […]