Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 […]

Hanford workers in Washington State who unsuccessfully challenged the site’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in federal district court are taking their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A group of 317 federal and contractor employees at the Hanford Site, three of whom say they have been fired from their jobs, filed […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico last week declined to provide a timeline for moving potentially combustible drums of stranded Los Alamos National Laboratory transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from a private site in Texas. Reinhard Knerr, who manages the DOE Carlsbad […]

The subcontractor in charge of sinking a new utility shaft at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., needs to fix potential safety hazards, the federal agency said in a recent assessment. While prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership and subcontractor Harrison Western-Shaft Sinkers have a “generally adequate construction safety program,” they […]

Six employees at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have settled their lawsuit contesting the COVID-19 vaccination policy implemented by prime contractor UT-Battelle, according to documents filed in federal court this week. U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley Jr. officially closed the books on the case in a single-page order Tuesday, citing […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 12 shipments during May, according to the public website for the disposal site. The dozen shipments in May 2022 are eight fewer than the 20 recorded in May 2021. So far during the calendar year 2022, the underground salt mine has received 67 […]

While construction is essentially complete, serious challenges remain to starting up the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant by the end of 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office. The Department of Energy still estimates the direct-feed low-activity waste (DFLAW) portion of the plant will begin turning some liquid, radioactive tank waste into glass […]

The Department of Energy expects priority work at the Moab uranium tailings site in Utah to be largely done within four years, officials with DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during a virtual briefing Wednesday. “We are getting close to closure,” at the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings project, said Russell McCallister, […]

The Department of Energy’s confirmatory run of its Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory has been paused once for about a day since its resumption May 23, a state official said Tuesday. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) “is currently operating at steady state conditions for the Confirmatory Run,” Kim Custer, a […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management appointed Betsy Forinash, a 30-year veteran of nuclear-cleanup and regulatory work, as the deputy assistant secretary for waste and materials management, the cleanup branch said Thursday. Forinash’s selection was announced by Candice Robertson, acting principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Environmental Management, or EM-2, in […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday awarded incumbent CAST Specialty Transportation a new five-year contract with a maximum $100-million value for haulage of defense-related transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. CAST won the new Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Transportation Services small business set-aside contract over three other proposals, the […]