Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Since starting up in October, the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has processed 1 million gallons of radioactive tank waste, plant builder Parson wrote this week in press release. The 140,000-square-foot Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is the center of DOE plans to empty 36 […]

At least one company that unsuccessfully bid against Tennessee-based Navarro Research and Engineering for the new Technical Assistance Contract at the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico will be debriefed next week by the Department of Energy, a source said Thursday. The DOE announced July 1 that Navarro won a potential five-year, $100-million technical assistance […]

An internal Department of Energy watchdog recently gave a generally positive appraisal of evolving plans to protect workers and the public from potential hazards at the main treatment plant for the Hanford Site’s most radioactive liquid waste. It was part of the Office of Enterprise Assessments’ recent review of the Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis for […]

Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions, the Department of Energy contractor in charge of the 177 underground tanks of radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, is looking for firms to do corrosion testing on double-shell tanks. Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) published a notice Wednesday on a federal procurement website seeking “expressions of […]

The Department of Energy now expects to restart an underground fan at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico by early fall as a means to bolster airflow until a new permanent ventilation system is operational in a few years.  Restarting the 700-C underground fan should add about 90,000 cubic feet per minute, bringing […]

Fowler General Construction Inc. of Richland, Washington, received three Hanford contracts totaling almost $19 million from tank farms prime Washington River Protection Solutions. One $5.3 million contract is to construct a 17,600-square-foot office building at Hanford’s 222-S laboratory. The laboratory provides analytical support for the tank farms.  The other two contracts cover $13.5 million are […]

The Secretary of Energy did not deny any written requests for information from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in the six months ended June 30, the chair of the independent federal board reported recently to Congress. “The Board has no denials of access to information to report in the past six months,” Defense Nuclear […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has received more than 1,000 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste since the deep underground repository reopened in 2017 after the underground radiation leak of February 2014. More than three weeks ago, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) received its 1,000th shipment since April 2017, […]

Bidders vying for a potential five-year $100-million contract for moving containers of transuranic material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico should inform the Department of Energy about all their recent vehicle accidents, even those where a truck hits a deer. That is one of the takeaways from the questions and answers published […]

In a long-awaited legal settlement over six years of mislabeled, radioactive waste shipments to Nevada, the Department of Energy agreed to tighten waste-inspection standards at nuclear weapon sites and overhaul its solid waste permit with the state by early next year, Carson City’s top environmental official said this week. DOE will also have to revise […]

As part of President Joe Biden’s executive order to review policies issued by the Donald Trump White House, the Environmental Protection Agency is taking another look at its December 2020 approval of plans for a new landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, the agency said recently. DOE’s draft record of […]

Environmentalists this week sued to stop the National Nuclear Security Administration from building a plutonium pit plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., alleging violation of environmental law. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should have to reopen the environmental record for the planned Savannah River Plutonium Pit Production Facility (SRPPF) and a […]

After holding up the project two years, the Department of Energy will start developing an environmental assessment in July for a 2,000-gallon test of the Test Bed Initiative that involves grouting and out-of-state disposal of low-activity tank waste from the Hanford Site in Washington state. DOE’s site manager for Hanford, Brian Vance, told the Washington […]

After two presidential administrations allowed the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board to dwindle to only seven out of a potential 25 members, the panel voted this week to adopt a policy to avoid such staffing shortages in the future. The Citizens Advisory Board voted during an online meeting carried Monday via […]

Fire danger at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state continued to be “extreme” Friday morning as the region suffered through a heatwave, according to an advisory from the landlord contractor at the cleanup property. With daytime highs in triple digits into next week, Hanford is utilizing maximum telework of about 40%, according […]

SOC, a Day & Zimmermann company, filed a bid protest June 28 over the Department of Energy’s decision to stand by a February award of a security services contract to Securitas-led SRS Critical Infrastructure Security. It is the second challenge filed by a losing bidder with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) over the  $1-billion contract […]

Bechtel Cavendish Nuclear Solutions said recently it has received a two-year extension on its existing contract to continue work at a 1950s nuclear waste silo on the United Kingdom’s Sellafield Site in northern England. Since 2012 the team led by Virginia-based Bechtel has been designing and installing access doors and remote-handling equipment to help retrieve […]

North Wind Site Services has won a Department of Energy remediation contract, potentially worth $22 million over five years, at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna, N.Y., the agency said in a press release this week.  West Virginia-based North Wind Site Services is part of North Wind Group, which in turn is owned by […]

A U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina agreed Thursday to grant a Department of Justice motion to dismiss a False Claims Act lawsuit filed in 2016 against Fluor and the Fluor-led management contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site over millions of dollars in reimbursement for home office expenses. The one-page order […]

Late Thursday, the Department of Energy awarded Tennessee-based Navarro Research and Engineering the new Technical Assistance Contract at the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico potentially worth $100-million over five years, a move with implications for the agency’s ongoing search for a new operations manager at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Barring a bid protest, […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm this week praised the Senate’s Tuesday confirmation of Ali Nouri by voice vote to serve as DOE’s assistant secretary for congressional and Intergovernmental affairs. “As both a scientist and a proven consensus-builder, Ali will bring unparalleled perspective and expertise to his work with Congress and our federal, state, and local […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management currently has 48 active confirmed cases of COVID-19, which is five less than a week ago, a spokesperson for the cleanup office said in a Thursday email. The number of weekly confirmed cases in the cleanup complex stayed within a tight range of 47 to 53 for […]

A group composed of Battelle and a quintet of universities from two states is now operating the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. The Battelle Savannah River Alliance (BSRA) took over management of the lab Monday, officially announcing the news via Twitter: “Proud to be @Battelle’s newest national laboratory! Our team […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday morning her agency’s Office of Environmental Management remains on track to commence treatment of low-activity tank waste by the end of 2023 at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The startup of direct feed low activity waste (DFLAW) operations would mark the beginning […]

The Central Plateau Cleanup Co. will begin cocooning the K East Reactor later this year, Brian Stickney, the Department of Energy’s deputy Hanford manager for the agency’s Richland office, said last week.  Stickney spoke June 16 at a public briefing on Hanford in general for the public. The briefing was conducted via Internet with about […]

A federal lawsuit brought against current and former Department of Energy contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio is timely because it was filed soon after the public learned of radioactive contamination at a public school outside the fence, plaintiffs said in a filing last week. Ursula McGlone and fellow plaintiffs argue in a June […]

A month-long moratorium on transuranic waste shipments using filler material commonly known as dunnage ended in early June, a spokesperson for DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant said this week. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico notified DOE that transuranic waste generators were estimating the weight of their payloads, including the dunnage, instead of […]