Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Many sites within the Department of Energy’s weapons complex have at least some level of exposure to certain human-made chemicals drawing increasing attention from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a report released Tuesday. The DOE rolled out its “Initial Assessment of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances PFAS” at 53 properties, including sites run by […]

Barring some legal reversal, a Bechtel affiliate and subcontractor Los Alamos Technical Associates should take the reins at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico around Feb. 9.  Also, as of the day before Thanksgiving, three major opportunities for new business remained across the old weapons complex and three contractors awaited […]

On Nov. 17, the legacy cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico lifted a month-long stop work order issued after a steady drip of small mishaps, a spokesperson said Tuesday. Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) fully lifted the “self-imposed stop work order” last week after allowing some […]

Advanced reactor developer NuScale Power Corp. is still losing money but is otherwise in excellent financial shape, with a $ 268.6 million war chest, short-term investments of $50 million and no debt, NuScale CEO John Hopkins and CFO Chris Colbert said in a teleconference with analysts.  In the third quarter of 2022 that ended Sept. […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup field office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, set up in 2015, and its remediation contractor still face staff shortages, a federal safety watchdog heard Wednesday. Michael Mikolanis, who heads the DOE Office of Environmental Management field office at Los Alamos, told the Defense Nuclear Facilities […]

The Government Accountability Office did not buy a losing bidder’s argument that the winner of a 10-year contract to manage the Department of Energy’s main deep-underground nuclear waste repository should have been penalized in competitive bidding because of the winner’s link to a 2014 radiation release at the site. Made public Thursday by the office […]

The Department of Energy is investigating the source of dried radioactive waste found near a pipe-fitting at the Tank-Side Cesium Removal project at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a spokesperson said last week. The ongoing review could show if there is a leak in the process piping in the Tank Side Cesium Removal system […]

The Department of Energy has deducted about $890,000 in fee award from the prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. after a worker lost part of two fingers in a 2021 accident. The agency’s Enterprise Assessments’ Office of Enforcement issued a preliminary notice of violation of worker health and safety standards […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received at least 29 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during October, according to a public website for the facility. As of Thursday morning, the website, which typically trails actual shipments by about two weeks, listed the last shipment during the month occurring on Oct. […]

Local residents must retain a voice in what goes on at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina after federal responsibility for the complex shifts  to the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration in 2025, the head of the Citizens Advisory Board said Monday. Last month, DOE confirmed its Office of Environmental Management […]

While the House of Representatives is reportedly swinging to red from blue, a Democrat and political newcomer has claimed the Republican-held seat in Washington state not far from the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. Meanwhile, a narrow victory by incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) over state attorney general Adam Laxalt (R) gives Democrats a […]

Candice Robertson, a long-serving hand with the Department of Energy currently acting as the No. 2 boss at the Office of Environmental Management, is moving to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission effective Dec. 4. The news was shared by Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White in an “EM Colleagues” email Thursday. Candice Robertson, […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is distributing $30 million in grant money to minority serving institutions to bolster math, science and technology education among non-white students in South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington state. The funds should help develop science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) proficiency among students at traditionally black, hispanic and […]

In congressional races in Washington state, incumbents who help control the purse strings for the Hanford Site, the Department of Energy’s largest and most expensive nuclear cleanup property, won re-election. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose 4th congressional district includes Hanford and who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, was declared the winner by the Associated […]

Depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion operations are going slower and costing more than the Department of Energy expected only a few years ago, according to an audit by the agency’s Office of Inspector General. When DOE brought its first depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion plant online in 2010, it still thought converting 800,000 metric tons of […]

A federal magistrate judge in Ohio Thursday declined to force a resident near the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site to turn over information she collected over time with her own private air monitors. That is according to an online notice of an order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers filed “without prejudice,” meaning it […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., started disposing of transuranic waste in the new Panel 8 this week, an agency spokesperson confirmed Thursday.  In recent weeks, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) emplaced its final shipment of defense-related transuranic waste in Panel 7, according to DOE. Panel 7 was contaminated […]

Mediation was set to resume Dec. 9 between the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s prime contractor and six lab employees who sued the company over its COVID-19 vaccination policy. Plaintiffs led by Jeffrey and Jessica Bilyeu were to sit down with the University of Tennessee-Battelle (UT-Battelle) contractor team and mediator Chadwick Hatmaker in an attempt to […]

Fluor executives said Nov. 4 they are pleased with progress being made on both the business and the regulatory front by small modular reactor developer NuScale, in which Texas-based Fluor remains a majority stakeholder. In September NuScale signed a deal to start development of the first small modular reactor (SMR) in Poland and next year […]

Earnings rose at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., in the third quarter, which the nuclear contractor attributed during a Monday earnings report to growth throughout its naval, weapons cleanup and commercial power lines. Net earnings for the 2022 third quarter were $61.6 million, or $0.67 a share, up from $60.2 million, or $0.63 a share, in […]

Key questions remain about the practicality of either immobilizing waste with grout or building of a second glass-making plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, a National Academies of Science panel said Tuesday.  This includes examination of the timeline for building another vitrification plant at Hanford or, if DOE decides to […]

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday rejected a challenge by a Westinghouse-led group to the Department of Energy’s July award of a potentially $3 billion management contract to manage the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. In a statement, the Government Accountability Office said it has denied the bid protest filed by Carlsbad Operations […]

Sampling overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers around the Jana Elementary School in Florissant, Mo., has not turned up evidence of radiation above background levels, the Corps’ St. Louis District Office said Wednesday. “From a radiological standpoint, the school is safe,” Col. Kevin Golinghorst, St. Louis District commander, said in a press release.  […]

The Department of Energy will indeed start later this month to heat up a facility to eventually convert 900,000 gallons of radioactive sodium-bearing liquid waste at the Idaho National Laboratory into a more stable form for disposal, an agency spokesperson said Thursday. Actual operation of the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) will occur early […]

The New Mexico Environment Department could issue a 10-year draft permit for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., before Christmas, a state spokesperson said recently. The draft permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) should be released for public comment by late November or early December, Matthew Maez of […]

The Washington state congressional delegation wrote to President Joe Biden last week, urging more federal funding for the Hanford Site in fiscal 2024 as the former plutonium production facility starts turning low-level radioactive tank waste into glass. The DOE and Bechtel are targeting the startup of the Direct-Feed-Low-Activity-Waste Facility at the Waste Treatment Plant by […]

A federal magistrate judge has ruled a scientist fired by a Honeywell-owned prime contractor for Sandia National Laboratories need not litigate his wrongful termination case in U.S. District Court. U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephan Vidmar ruled Oct. 20 that National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia has not proven the lawsuit brought by Carlsbad, N.M., -based […]