Department of Energy

Don’t expect another Senate-confirmed nominee during President Donald Trump’s current term to succeed Anne Marie White at the helm of the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management. That was the assessment offered this week by several observers of the DOE weapons complex. The chances of the White House finding a qualified and willing candidate – […]

The Waste Control Specialists (WCS) site in Andrews County, Texas is still an attractive potential home for thousands of metric tons of elemental mercury. That’s according to a supplemental analysis published Monday by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. The document says facilities at WCS would still be a good option for storage of up to […]

The long-anticipated start of a facility to treat sodium-bearing liquid radioactive and hazardous waste at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory recently took another step toward reality, Fluor Idaho said. The contractor said Tuesday it finished a 50-day demonstration of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU). During the longest trial run to date the plant […]

The Waste Control Specialists (WCS) site in Andrews County, Texas is still an attractive potential home for thousands of metric tons of elemental mercury. That’s according to a supplemental analysis published Monday by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. The document says facilities at WCS would still be a good option for storage of up to 6,800 metrics […]

WASHINGTON — While leadership is changing at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management, a recently-initiated approach to procurement remains in place. Some people have inquired recently if the end state contracting approach is still in effect, Norbert Doyle, deputy assistant secretary, acquisition and project management, told the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus here Wednesday evening […]

Not all waste resulting from reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel should be considered high-level radioactive waste (HLW), the Energy Department reaffirmed Wednesday. Under its new interpretation, DOE says some lower-risk reprocessing waste can be deemed non-HLW and be disposed of according to its radiological traits rather than its point of origin. That could speed up […]

The Waste Control Specialists (WCS) site in Andrews County, Texas is still an attractive potential home for thousands of metric tons of elemental mercury. That’s according to a supplemental analysis published Monday by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. The document says facilities at WCS would still be a good option for storage of up to 6,800 […]

The long-anticipated start of a facility to treat sodium-bearing liquid radioactive and hazardous waste at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory recently took another step toward reality, Fluor Idaho said. The contractor said last week it finished a 50-day demonstration of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU). During the longest trial run to date the […]

The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor was under no obligation to rehire a former employee, the company wrote in a recent letter objecting to a magistrate judge’s opinion in a 2016 lawsuit. Savannah River Remediation (SRR) added that it did not discriminate against former employee Adrienne Saulsberry, who is black, when it opted not […]

Language in a fiscal 2020 spending package passed by the full House Appropriations Committee May 21 says the Energy Department should comply with prior consent decrees when it comes to remediation its portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in California. A provision of the report accompanying the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) will hold its next WIPP Town Hall briefing June 20 at 5:30 p.m. Pacific time at the Carlsbad, N.M., City Hall Annex on June 20. An agenda for the meeting will be released closer to the date, a city of Carlsbad representative said by email Monday. The […]

The Energy Department Friday published its justification for contracting a Centrus Energy subsidiary to demonstrate high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) production without competitive bidding. The federal government wants to deploy a 16-machine cascade at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to demonstrate production of 19.75% enriched uranium fuel by June 2022 using domestic technology. Centrus’ American […]

Don’t expect another Senate-confirmed nominee during President Donald Trump’s current term to succeed Anne Marie White at the helm of the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management. That was the assessment offered Monday by several observers of the DOE weapons complex. The chances of the White House finding a qualified and willing candidate – and […]

Community reuse organizations designed to promote economic development at Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup sites got good news last month when the House Appropriations Committee voted to affirm their authority to receive and resell old equipment the federal agency no longer needs. The committee-approved $7.2 billion fiscal budget for the Office of Environmental Management makes it […]

Supporters of the departing Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White say she refocused the Energy Department’s $7 billion nuclear cleanup office on completing work, rather than just safely maintaining 16 Cold War sites. But when Energy Secretary Rick Perry confirmed in a Friday email to DOE staff White has resigned effective June 14, […]

Fluor Idaho expects to finish its work this month at the site of a radioactive waste sludge accident in April 2018 at the Idaho National Laboratory, the company informed state officials last week. Four 55-gallon drums of waste overheated and blew off their lids on April 11, 2018, hours after the contents were exposed to […]

A class-action lawsuit filed in federal court this week accuses current and former Energy Department contractors of failure to prevent radioactive contamination from spreading beyond the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The case was initiated by two families in Pike County, where the former uranium enrichment complex is located. One of the families has a child […]

A federal judge says he plans by the first week of June to rule on a Department of Justice lawsuit against the state of Washington over eased workers’ compensation requirements for workers at the Hanford Site. Judge Stanley Bastian, of U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, heard arguments May 22 from the parties. He reminded […]

The Savannah River Site’s $2.3 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) remains on track to begin operations by the end of this year, despite a more conservative unofficial date of May 2020 cited in a document prepared by the site’s liquid waste contractor. Neither DOE nor salt waste contractor Parsons, have announced any further delay […]

Fluor is bringing back a retired chief financial officer, Michael Steuert, to permanently fill the role again as current CFO Bruce Stanski assists the Dallas-area company’s new chief executive with a strategic review. The international engineering, procurement, and construction company also announced Monday that Mark Fields will become the new president of its energy and […]

Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White has resigned effective June 14. In an email obtained by Weapons Complex Monitor, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette confirmed widespread industry chatter that White is leaving the agency after less than two years. The same email, distributed to a DOE mailing list, confirmed longtime […]

The Energy Department Thursday issued a “sources sought” notice seeking market input on a revamped liquid waste procurement at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The agency is seeking responses by 5 p.m. ET on June 13 to its market research inquiry on what it now calls the Integrated Mission Completion Contract. The Energy […]

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) plans in September to release a report on the Energy Department’s payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) to communities surrounding its national laboratories and nuclear cleanup sites. The report will analyze how PILT payments are calculated across sites and how have they varied over time, according to the GAO. […]

The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor is expected to argue next month that race did not factor into its unwillingness to rehire a laid-off employee who sued the company over her termination. A court hearing for Adrienne Saulsberry’s lawsuit against her former employer, Savannah River Remediation (SRR), is scheduled for June 25 in Aiken, […]

It should take anywhere from two to four weeks to fully analyze the Energy Department’s new sampling for radioactive contaminants at a middle school near the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The results should be publicly provided as soon as they are available, Pike County Health Commissioner Matt Brewster said in a Wednesday email. A team […]

The Department of Energy as of Thursday had neither officially confirmed nor denied widespread chatter regarding the resignation of Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White. A number of sources first said last week that White had been asked to step down after 14 months leading the office charged with cleanup of 16 radioactively […]

It should take anywhere from two to four weeks to fully analyze the Energy Department’s new sampling for radioactive contaminants at a middle school near the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The results should be publicly provided as soon as they are available, Pike County Health Commissioner Matt Brewster said in a Wednesday email. A team […]

Fluor is bringing back a retired chief financial officer, Michael Steuert, to permanently fill the role again as current CFO Bruce Stanski assists the Dallas-area company’s new chief executive with a strategic review. The international engineering, procurement, and construction company also announced Monday that Mark Fields will become the new president of its energy and […]

A team of certified health physicists from the Energy Department spent the Memorial Day weekend in Piketon, Ohio, collecting air samples that will be analyzed for signs of radioactive contamination at a local middle school. Forty-four air samples were collected both inside and outside of Zahn’s Corner Middle School, about 2 miles from DOE’s Portsmouth […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requesting more information about the Energy Department’s plan for closure of a radioactive waste storage tank farm at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The nuclear regulator will present the request at a DOE public meeting, scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. May 30 in Richland. The information request […]