Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

While it did not generate much chatter Monday during a quarterly earnings call focused on strong numbers, BWX Technologies is in the running for billions more in government contracts across the Department of Energy weapons complex over the next year. Having already won the $21-billion, 15-year Savannah River Integrated Mission contract for liquid waste cleanup […]

A lawsuit against the Department of Energy’s prime contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, filed by about 80 employees who objected to its COVID-19 vaccination policy, was dismissed. The plaintiffs, led by Shawn Phillip Rhoades, and defendant Savannah River Nuclear Solutions filed a joint motion for dismissal dated Thursday in the U.S. […]

With Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm set to visit the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state Friday a coalition of organizations wrote President Joe Biden Tuesday urging a $1 billion increase in cleanup funding for the former plutonium production site. “Given its role as the workhorse for plutonium production, the scope of Hanford’s cleanup […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose 4th congressional district includes the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, is the evident winner of an open primary, despite being one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 capitol insurrection. But Newhouse’s fellow House Appropriations Committee member in a neighboring district, who […]

The Department of Energy says the Tank-Side Cesium Removal project at the Hanford Site in Washington state has now pretreated 380,000 gallons of low-level radioactive tank waste before entering its latest outage on July 20. More than 182,000 gallons of tank waste was treated in Batch 2, which began on June 18 and concluded July […]

Counties surrounding the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee and DOE nuclear cleanup sites in Utah and Nevada no longer have high transmission levels of COVID-19. That is according to the latest data posted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website Friday. When local CDC […]

The new Amentum-led cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee will be taking over transuranic waste operations at the property from North Wind Group later this year, an agency spokesperson confirmed this week.  Transition to United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) from North Wind was to begin at the end of […]

As of Thursday evening, House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) was narrowly leading an open primary in his 4th Congressional district that encompasses the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state with a Democratic Party challenger 1,000 votes behind. Newhouse, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump […]

The highly-contaminated Hanford Site in Washington state accounted for over half the environmental liability for the entire Department of Energy, but opportunities exist for curbing increasing costs at the property, according to a congressional watchdog. In a new report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said DOE could save “tens of billions of dollars” by abandoning […]

Amid a profitable quarter, Fluor, Irving, Texas, said Friday the Department of Energy plans to extend a Fluor-led joint venture’s tenure as prime contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina for up to five years. During an earnings call, Fluor CEO David Constable also expressed optimism about the company’s chances of landing individual […]

The entire Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Sept. 13 in New Orleans on a case surrounding the Joe Biden administration’s authority to require most federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19. That’s according to a notice posted recently on the appeals court’s website announcing the date of the “en banc” or […]

Swift & Staley, the incumbent landlord contractor at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, is urging an appeals court to set a hearing so the company can argue a lower court and the federal government were wrong to find the contractor too large to qualify for a follow-on contract. Swift & Staley Inc. […]

A draft energy and water development bill for fiscal 2023 posted last week by the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee directs the Department of Energy to spend $2 million on a “reindustrialization” study at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. The document did not provide any detail on the scope of the study or when […]

Earnings rose at Jacobs, Dallas, in the 3rd quarter of fiscal 2022, which the engineering, procurement and construction contractor, active in the Department of Energy nuclear weapons complex, attributed to strong performances in the climate, data and consulting sectors. Net earnings for the third quarter ended July 1 were $196 million, or  $1.52 a share, […]

While the Department of Energy’s latest environmental review of the problem picked no preferred site for long-term storage of elemental mercury, the feds favor placing the metal in an existing facility that could accept the material quickly. “Because statutory milestone dates have now passed, DOE needs to designate a facility and begin accepting elemental mercury […]

The final major test run of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory concluded last week and, after a decade of trying, the agency is hoping to start radiological operations this fall. The confirmatory run of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) ended July 27 after DOE and its […]

A worker who on July 5, experienced radiological contamination on “unprotected areas” of the head and arm, at the Hanford Site 222-S laboratory tested negative for any internal contamination, a Department of Energy spokesperson said Tuesday. “The contamination was successfully removed from the individual’s skin and clothing without incident in the facility,” the DOE spokesperson […]

A venture called Carlsbad Operations Alliance LLC has filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office challenging the Department of Energy’s selection of a Bechtel-led entity to serve as the next prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant A notice of the contract challenge dated Monday was filed online with the Government Accountability […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board favors having a national lab study the risk of a potential hydrogen explosion at a high-level radioactive waste vitrification plant being built at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. In a document dated July 19, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), charged by Congress with […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., this week saw its community rate for COVID-19 drop to “medium” from “high,” according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a result, it appears the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) might be the only DOE nuclear cleanup site approved […]

With the retirement of a top executive, Sharon Smoot will step in as president of BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Operations Group effective Aug. 1, the company said in a press release Wednesday morning. In her new role, Smoot will be responsible for the operations group’s complete range of nuclear components and services, “including the manufacture of […]

A top federal manager for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said Monday the agency is continuing to investigate the cause of a July 4 spill of low-level radioactively contaminated water near H Canyon. “We are taking a very hard look at exactly what occurred,” Michael Budney, the DOE Office of […]

The Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has treated over 991,000 gallons of waste so far in fiscal 2022, a Department of Energy official told the Citizens Advisory Board for the site Monday.   “We just recently completed a planned outage,” July 12 at the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), […]

The Government Accountability Office is urging the Department of Energy to provide more details on how its nuclear weapons and cleanup programs handle federal funds carried over from prior-year budgets. At the end of fiscal 2021 the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) had about $3.2 billion in total carryover balances, and the National Nuclear […]

The inventory of defense-related transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico amounts to more than 3,300 containers, but most are not “ready to ship” to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office manager said last week. While the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) has 2,273 […]

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth earned 75% of its total potential fee and about 82% of its subjective fee from the Department of Energy for its cleanup work at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio for the 12-month period ended March 28, according to a just-released scorecard. Overall, the contractor took home $16.6 million out of a potential $22.1 […]

National TRU Solutions, a joint venture led by Huntington Ingalls Industries, filed a bid protest Tuesday challenging the Department of Energy’s selection of a Bechtel entity for a contract worth up to $3 billion to operate the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. A notice of the TRU Solutions bid protest is posted on […]

U.S. District Judge Julianna Michelle Childs, who presided over a number of Department of Energy nuclear cases in South Carolina, and who was publicly discussed as a contender for a U.S. Supreme vacancy, has won confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Childs was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit […]