The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has set the new date for a public hearing on two radioactive waste drum accidents in the Energy Department weapons complex.
The hearing, originally set for last month, is now scheduled for noon to 4 p.m. Thursday, June 20, at DNFSB headquarters in Washington D.C. The hearing was delayed due to problems with witness availability.
The hearing will examine causes and lessons learned from incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico in February 2014 and the Idaho National Laboratory in April 2018. Board members plan to discuss efforts to improve waste handling at Energy Department nuclear facilities and examine potential vulnerabilities.
Individuals may submit written comments before or during the hearing. Anyone interested in speaking during the public comment period must preregister by emailing a request to [email protected].
On April 11, 2018, four drums of sludge waste overheated and blew off their lids hours after the contents were exposed to air during repackaging at the Idaho National Laboratory’s Accelerated Retrieval Project 5 facility. The waste, stored for decades on-site at the lab, originally came from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado.
More than four years earlier, an underground radiation leak caused the transuranic waste disposal site to suspend operations for about three years.
The initial agenda for May 22 listed more than a half-dozen witnesses, including Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management Anne Marie White, who has resigned effective Friday. Todd Shrader, the former Carlsbad Field Office Manager in New Mexico, is now scheduled to testify in his new role as principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE’s environmental management office.
A full list of invited witnesses is available here.
The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG), which represents companies that do business within the Energy Department nuclear cleanup and weapons complex, picked new officers during its annual meeting June 5 in Washington, D.C.
Michael Lempke, president of the Nuclear and Environmental Group at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Technical Solutions division, was selected as EFCOG’s new chairman, succeeding Billy Morrison, CEO of Veolia Nuclear Solutions-Federal Services. Sandra Fairchild, director of project services and support at Savannah River Remediation; was elected vice chair. Morgan Smith, president and CEO of Consolidated Nuclear Security, was elected vice chair-elect.
The officers serve one-year terms.
Jack Craig, vice president of Atkins Global, Nuclear Secured, was elected to the EFCOG board for the first time, as was Bob Wilkinson, president of Mission Support Alliance.
Seven executives were re-elected to the EFCOG board. They are Morrison, Fairchild, and Smith, as well as Liz Porter, a senior vice president at Leidos; Mark Whitney, general manager and executive vice president of AECOM’s Nuclear and Environment unit; Jeff Stevens, vice president of operations at BWX Technologies; and Kelly Beierschmitt, deputy director at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The Energy Facility Contractors Group has 112 member companies. The organization is open to DOE prime management contractors or their integrated subcontractors. It is also open to entities that support the prime contractors, including subcontractors and consultants, so long as they can make a technical contribution to a working group and are endorsed for membership by a prime contractor.
The organization is led by senior executives from contractors at the Energy Department and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
