Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management should bring in an outside entity to gauge the effectiveness of the overhauled procurement strategy implemented in 2019 to improve its multi-billion-dollar nuclear cleanup operation, the Government Accountability Office said Wednesday. The head of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) should also develop specific performance goals for […]

The Department of Energy is “resurrecting” a proposal to build a 10-megawatt solar power field at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, an infrastructure manager told an advisory board meeting Monday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management studied and dropped solar plans after starting to look at it in 2019, said David Bender, the […]

The Department of Energy acknowledged late Thursday it will miss the latest state deadline for starting radiological operations of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory but still expects to start treating sodium-bearing waste this fall. The federal agency has requested an extension beyond the current Friday Sept. 30 deadline for using […]

As expected, the Department of Energy has signed a potential five-year, multibillion-dollar extension with the Fluor-led management and operations manager for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the company said late Thursday.  The extension could keep Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) on as the prime contractor through September 2027 and be worth $12 billion […]

Attorneys for current and former contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio said last week they want to limit duplication of paperwork from various citizen lawsuits in federal court accusing the companies of allowing dangerous amounts of contamination to escape outside the fence. The lawyers for a group of eight contractors also […]

The award of seven field site technical assistance contracts together worth up to $120 million over five years was announced this week by the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office. The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts were awarded to S&K Mission Support, AKIMA Systems Engineering, ARS Aleut Remediation, Catawba Engineering and Environmental Services, Energy Technology Alliance, […]

ARLINGTON, VA — Coaxing new waste treatment facilities to run smoothly and tackling a variety of issues tied to a mature but graying workforce are among top challenges facing the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, agency execs said here Friday. On the upside, Environmental Management (EM) is approaching yearly funding of almost $8 […]

At least one Department of Energy nuclear cleanup property, the Portsmouth Site, is assured of replacing a seasoned lawmaker in November’s midterm election, with Sen. Portman (R-Ohio) not seeking a third term in the U.S. Senate. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) , the incumbent from Ohio’s 13th congressional district, is running against J.D. Vance, the GOP […]

David Campbell, former senior vice president of Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal Services, is joining EnergySolutions, the Salt Lake-City based company said Tuesday. Campbell, whose background includes executive stints at Bechtel as well as the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), will be joining EnergySolutions as the company’s executive vice president for business […]