Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority wrapped up most spent fuel reprocessing during 2022, one of the major advances for the agency charged with cleaning up the kingdom’s early nuclear sites, according to a new report. The U.K. National Decommissioning Authority (NDA) “strategy is to bring the reprocessing programme to an end,” according to the […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch could increase the value of a North Wind Group environmental remediation contract at a naval reactor laboratory site in New York state to $47 million from $22 million, according to a procurement notice published last week. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center published a justification for […]

During fiscal 2022, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board worked on staffing needs and finalized a deal with the Department of Energy spelling out the watchdog’s authority to access people, records and facilities around the weapons complex. Those are a couple of highlights from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) fiscal 2022 Agency Financial […]

Seeking to retain a $160 million small-business landlord services award from 2020 at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, an attorney for Swift & Staley told a federal appeals court Thursday the company never had a chance to explain why its minority role in a joint venture did not make it ineligible for […]

The Department of Energy will apply a little extra scrutiny to a worker’s heat exhaustion during legacy nuclear waste cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments said recently. The worker “experienced heat exhaustion while supporting corrugated metal pipe retrieval operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on September 8, […]

The administration of President Joe Biden has yet to submit its legal response to a brief filed in November in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over legality of a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for most workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. The current deadline for the government’s answering briefing in […]

Small businesses on the hunt for a share of assorted nationwide nuclear cleanup work at government sites are encouraged to team up by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. “DOE is issuing this notification to encourage offerors to consider the establishment of contractor teaming arrangements,” in pursuit of small business set-aside awards for […]

Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions is seeking a subcontractor to help ensure the quality of its cesium-removal system for low-level radioactive tank waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) is looking for a subcontractor to help with the “procurement, fabrication, and testing of replacement ion exchange […]

Jeff Avery, a longtime manager with the Office of Naval Reactors, has been selected as the new second-in-command at the Department of Energy’s $7.8-billion Office of Environmental Management. Avery, current director of regulatory and security affairs with the Office of Naval Reactors, officially becomes principal deputy assistant secretary for Environmental Management, or EM-2, effective in […]

The acting head of the Department of Energy’s $7.8-billion nuclear cleanup program says flexibility is key to solving tough-to-eradicate problems such as radioactive liquid waste disposal and groundwater contamination at Cold War and Manhattan Project sites. “At this point in time we are about 80 years removed from the Manhattan Project,” William (Ike) White told […]

The Hanford Site in Washington may not be able to make its first canister of glass from low-level radioactive tank waste until 2024, a year later than the Department of Energy hoped, an agency official said Thursday at a public meeting in New Orleans. “We originally had hoped to have hot commission by December” of […]

Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions started procurement this week for a subcontractor to help with the next liquid radioactive waste pretreatment system at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The planned Advanced Modular Pretreatment System will be a successor to the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) project that the Amentum-led Washington River […]

The long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory should start heating up before New Year’s and begin its cleanup mission in January, state and federal agencies said Wednesday. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), designed to convert 900,000 gallons of high-level sodium bearing radioactive waste into a granular form, […]

In observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, Weapons Complex Monitor will not publish this Friday, Nov. 25. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Dec. 2.

The environmental cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina will start testing its newest supersize Saltstone Disposal Unit for potential leaks right after Thanksgiving. BWX Technologies-led Savannah River Mission Completion will start a leak-tightness test at Saltstone Disposal Unit No. 8 (SDU 8) on Nov. 26, the company said […]

The West Valley Demonstration Project in Cattaraugus County, N.Y., experienced a cold and snowy weekend sufficient to delay start of work on Monday, but avoided the worst of the mega-storm that dumped several feet of snow 35 miles to the north in Buffalo, N.Y. “The site is in a two-hour delay, to allow employees who […]

Two federal agencies and the state of Idaho signed off on expansion of a low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), DOE and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality have agreed to expand the existing on-site Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act waste […]

Jacobs, the Dallas-based leader and member of various Department of Energy nuclear contractors, had a good fiscal 2022, with revenue and profit each rising for the year, the company reported Monday. In a call with investors shortly after the earnings report, Jacobs executives said they planned to ride a surge of interest in nuclear power, […]

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. […]