Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Uranium fuel company Cameco and environmental investment firm Brookfield Renewable Partners announced this week a strategic partnership aimed at purchasing Westinghouse Electric Company, according to a press release. If the deal closes as planned, Cameco will own a 49% stake in Westinghouse and Brookfield Renewable will control 51% of the company, according to a Tuesday […]

The Department of Energy said this week it plans to increase the ceiling on a small business contract held by RSI Services to $47 million from $22 million for demolition and removal work at two Naval Reactor sites in New York state. Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based RSI won the five-year demolition contract for the Kesselring and […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 22 shipments of transuranic waste during September, an agency spokesperson said this week. The monthly tally is slightly less than the August total of 25. The figure far exceeds the September 2021 total of only three shipments, according to the DOE’s public website […]

Two research contractors for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory could enter guilty pleas next week for allegedly submitting false bills to the federal agency for nearly a decade, according to filings in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina. Greenway Energy and Savannah River Consulting, both of which have agreed to plead […]

The two partners in Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, the incumbent cleanup team at the Department of Energy Portsmouth Site in Ohio, are rivals in pursuit of the new Decontamination & Decommissioning Contract, industry sources said this week. BWX Technologies is leading a team along with Jacobs and APTIM that is vying for the follow-on Portsmouth decommissioning contract, […]

As the top boss at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office promised last week, crews at the Hanford Site in Washington state are heating up a giant melter designed to solidify radioactive tank waste into a glass form at the $17-billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. The DOE began heating up the 300-ton melter […]

The story “UCOR takes home 85% of its potential fee; discusses new Oak Ridge contract” in [Weapons Complex Monitor, Vol. 33, No. 38] should have said that an Amentum-Jacobs team won 85% of its potential fee from the Department of Energy for its remediation of the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee during the final seven […]

A Department of Energy contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state will commence retrieving radioactive waste from a single-shell tank next month, a federal safety board said recently. Amentum-led contractor Washington River Protection Solutions plans to begin retrieval of tank AX-101’s  waste in mid-November, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said in a […]

State and federal agencies said in a Wednesday analysis that teardown and removal of old U.S. Naval submarine reactor prototype facilities at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is the best remediation option. That is according to an engineering evaluation/cost analysis published for demolition of Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse and Aircraft Carrier 1st Generation […]

There is a changing at the guard in upper management ranks of Oak Ridge, Tenn.,-based Navarro Research & Engineering as Ryan Overton, formerly of GEM Technologies, becoming executive vice president, gradually takes over the role from industry vet Cathy Hickey who plans to retire from the company next year. “Ryan is fabulous,” Hickey said in […]

KNOXVILLE, TENN. – The Department of Energy’s acting manager for nuclear cleanup at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee said here Wednesday that final state and federal authorization are in hand for design and construction of a long-sought onsite low-level hazardous waste landfill. “We had a major milestone on Friday,” when the state of Tennessee […]

An upscale distillery run by Anne Marie White, the last Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, is now open in a renovated theatre in White’s hometown of Marquette, Mich. The Honorable Distillery is now open and has scheduled an official grand opening celebration for this Saturday Oct. 8. White, […]

Department of Energy contractor Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal Services has promoted chief operating officer Steve Moore to be its president and CEO. The U.S. based subsidiary of Veolia Nuclear Solutions announced the promotion in a Tuesday press release. Moore has been interim CEO since August following the resignation of William Morrison, who left Veolia to […]

Cavendish Nuclear, an international nuclear player in countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom, opened a United States office headquarters Sept. 22 in Arlington, Va., a spokesperson confirmed by email Wednesday. The nuclear industries in the United Kingdom and United States “share many similarities in their plant designs, operational histories and in the search […]

An Amentum-Jacobs team won about $27.5 million or 85% out of a potential $32 million from the Department of Energy for its remediation of the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee during the final seven months on the job. The DOE released the URS CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) award Oct. 3 for the period spanning Nov. […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will take over the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., by 2025, and the transition has started, the Department of Energy confirmed Tuesday. The former plutonium production site is currently the responsibility of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), the part of the agency responsible for cleaning up shuttered Manhattan […]

The Department of Energy is asking state regulators for another six months to start operating a plant to treat high-level radioactive sodium-bearing waste at the Idaho National Laboratory. In a Sept. 29 letter, DOE asked the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality to extend the formal state milestone to March 31, 2023 to process sodium-bearing waste […]

KNOXVILLE, TENN. — The Department of Energy looks forward to a future with miniature power reactors springing up around cleanup sites, but first it must deal with headaches such as brain drain and rising commodities costs: a few of the recurring themes from a two-day conference here this week. Re-industrialization of Cold War and Manhattan […]

KNOXVILLE, TENN. —The Department of Energy’s planned expansion of plutonium pit production at sites in New Mexico and South Carolina and other missions figure to drive a big jump in demand for glove box facilities in the near future, two speakers told the Energy Technology & Environmental Business Association conference here Thursday. Between 2022 and […]

The Government Accountability Office wants congress to clarify regulatory authority over a certain type of commercial low-level nuclear waste from shuttered reactors and old medical and industrial equipment, according to a report released Thursday. The Department of Energy has been studying disposal options of what is known as greater-than Class C (GTCC) waste and GTCC-like […]

Tropical Storm Ian was expected to bring wind gusts of up to 45 miles per hour Friday to Aiken County, S.C., and the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, according to the National Weather Service. Wind gusts of up to 36 miles per hour were expected later Friday evening, with up to an inch-and-a-half of […]

ARLINGTON, VA — During a conference dominated by workforce continuity issues, it was noted Friday  Sept. 23 that Department of Energy field office managers for nuclear cleanup, who often head the biggest employers in rural locales, have been in their current posts for less than five years.  Being a major government employer in small-town America […]

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory, including the portion being cleaned up by the Department of Energy, will have a new congressional representative in January 2023 thanks to redistricting. Following the 2020 Census, the independent California Citizens Redistricting Commission redrew the state’s congressional districts, moving the 2,850-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, Calif., to […]

The House of Representatives voted 230-201 Friday to approve a stopgap spending bill that keeps the federal government including the Department of Energy open through Dec. 16.  The stopgap measure keeps spending for the DOE Office of Environmental Management at the fiscal 2022 level of about $7.9 billion on a prorated basis. There are no […]

A federal district court judge in Tennessee has told litigants to resume mediation in a case involving a half-dozen employees suing the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory contractor over its COVID-19 vaccination policy. In an order Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Atchley, Jr. said he is not enthused about going forward with […]

The head of the Department of Energy field office overseeing the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., expects the facility to finish fiscal 2022 with 225 shipments of transuranic waste, short of its target of 299. As of Aug. 29, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) has received 217 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste […]

Expedited spent fuel removal is underway at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, now that the agency has decided not to recover high-enriched uranium from the L-Basin storage area, a manager told a federal advisory board Tuesday. “We just kept recovering and kept recovering … and we did not have a […]