Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

A major underground ventilation project key to the future of the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is almost two-thirds of the way finished, a manager for the prime contractor told a virtual “town hall” meeting Thursday. The Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System is 63% percent complete, Nuclear Waste Partnership president […]

A Honeywell-owned prime contractor for Sandia National Laboratories said in a Tuesday filing a wrongful firing suit brought against it by a scientist who worked on data for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant should remain in federal court. National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia said the wrongful termination suit brought by […]

A parent’s wrongful death suit against current and former Department of Energy contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio will be overseen by the same federal judge hearing a radiation contamination case brought by residents near the shuttered gaseous diffusion plant. An order Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio said the June […]

New Mexico and the federal government this week asked a federal magistrate to give them until Oct. 3 to resolve litigation about the 2016 consent order governing legacy nuclear-weapons cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Department of Justice, on behalf of the Department of Energy, and the attorney general’s office for New Mexico […]

Mid-America Conversion Services, the Atkins-led incumbent running the Department of Energy’s depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion program, employs a workforce of more than 400 people in Kentucky and Ohio, according to procurement information recently posted online. As of June 1 Mid-America has 200 employees at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, 119 union members and the rest […]

Maryland-based Amentum, a leading government contractor for the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense, announced the addition of two new senior managers June 30. Amentum, which leads multibillion-dollar joint ventures across the DOE weapons complex, announced the personnel additions in a June 30 press release. Sean Mullen was appointed executive vice president for […]

The House Appropriations Committee, which last week advanced a spending bill with about $7.9-billion in fiscal 2023 funds for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office, is still concerned about long-term remediation costs of the Hanford Site in Washington state. House appropriators remain antsy about the money and time needed to fully clean up the […]

The Department of Energy has taken care of seven of 25 priority issues identified by the Government Accountability Office in 2021 and should get to work on the rest, Congress’ investigative arm wrote in a letter to the agency. “We are also adding eight new recommendations related to project, program, and portfolio management; contract management; […]

The Department of Energy could start a federal readiness assessment this month at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory facilities in California that prepare transuranic waste for shipment to the agency’s underground disposal site in New Mexico, according to a government safety board. On May 31, 2022, the lab began the contractor readiness assessment for restarting operations […]

Workers employed by the Department of Energy’s prime contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina withdrew a legal challenge to the site’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate from a federal appeals court. “The dismissal of this interlocutory appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction does not affect either party’s right to appeal any final […]

Confirmed COVID-19 cases among onsite workers at the Department of Energy’s nuclear-cleanup branch declined for the seven days ended Thursday after spiking in recent weeks, an agency spokesperson said. There were 119 confirmed and active COVID cases at DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) worksites this week, down 52 from the 171 recorded the prior […]

A House Appropriations subcommittee recommends funding the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board at $41.4 million in fiscal 2023, the amount sought by the President Joe Biden administration and more than $5 million more than the safety watchdog received for fiscal 2022. The funding plan is included in the Energy and Water Development subcommittee’s bill report […]

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), a candidate for the U.S. Senate, used a House Appropriation Committee markup Tuesday on a Department of Energy fiscal 2023 budget proposal to discuss health concerns and hopes for economic development at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. During the vote approving the Energy and Water Development subcommittee’s nearly $7.9-billion budget for […]

After a three-judge panel earlier this year ruled in favor of the Joe Biden administration’s executive order requiring virtually all federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19, the entire Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to rehear the case. In a two-page order published Monday, the 5th Circuit said it has agreed to grant […]

Professional Project Services or Pro2Serve, appointed Sherry Browder as president and chief executive officer, the Tennessee-based Department of Energy contractor said Wednesday  In her new role, Browder, who last October was selected as the company’s president and chief operating officer, will be responsible for managing Pro2Serve’s offices, subsidiaries, contracts and staff nationwide, according to a […]

After the Supreme Court vacated a Washington state law aimed at making it easier for workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to claim compensation for job-related illnesses, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Congress must pass her Toxic Exposure Safety Act. The high court, an independent branch of the federal government, unanimously ruled last […]

While changes in a legally-binding consent decree allow the Department of Energy more time to start turning low-level radioactive tank waste into glass at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the agency’s goal is still to start the work by the end of 2023, the top fed at the property said Wednesday. While DOE has […]

The full House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday voted 32 to 24 in favor of a fiscal year 2023 spending bill with almost $7.9 billion for nuclear weapons cleanup at the Department of Energy. That’s about even with the 2022 appropriation, and with the Joe Biden administration’s ask, taking into account the roughly $190 million the […]

A contract solicitation for Technical Support Services at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee could hit the street in September, the Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center announced this week. The request for proposals (RFP) will be out no sooner than September, the contracting office said in a Thursday June 29 quarterly […]

Supply chain slowdowns are still gumming up work at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, a federal safety watchdog said recently. “General personal protective equipment such as nitrile gloves, rubber booties, Tyvek suits, respirator cartridges, and airline hoses have extended lead times up to six months,” the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said […]

Completion of the depleted uranium conversion program at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky could take three decades or more, an agency boss told the Paducah Site Citizens Advisory Board in Kentucky last week. Even before the depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) plants in Paducah and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio went offline in […]

A Department of Energy effort to reduce harmful underground emissions at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico will be slowed down pending a fire-hazard analysis of three new lithium-ion-battery-operated haul trucks, a government safety watchdog said in a recent update. Nuclear Waste Partnership, the DOE’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant […]

Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal Services last week dedicated a new low-level radioactive waste vitrification facility at the Waste Control Specialists site in Andrews County, Texas, according to a release on LinkedIn. Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal Services (VNS Federal Services), which is a Department of Energy contractor, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony June 15 for its new […]

The Department of Energy says it is conceivable that one company or joint venture could win both multibillion-dollar contracts being sought at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. In an online filing last week, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said such an outcome is not out of the question, provided […]

U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thompson Dietz last week released a public copy of an order refusing the government’s request to place a time limit on Department of Energy contractor Swift & Staley’s stay as landlord at the Paducah Site in Kentucky The company seeks to reverse the judge’s ruling the company is too […]

While the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously rejected a 2018 workers compensation law affecting nuclear cleanup personnel at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, a state official predicted a revised version of the law approved earlier this year will survive. “Because the legislature already fixed the issues the federal government raised, there is little […]

Michael Nartker, the chief of staff for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, will leave the government to join DOE small-business contractor Longenecker & Associates, someone familiar with the move said Tuesday. Nartker has worked in various communications and external relations roles for DOE’s nuclear-weapons cleanup branch since 2015, capping his seven-year government […]

The National Defense Authorization Act passed early Thursday morning by the House Armed Services Committee roughly matches the White House’s modified request for the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons cleanup in 2023. The bill, an annual must-pass piece of legislation that sets policy and spending limits for military and civilian defense programs, would authorize DOE’s […]