The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments enforcement office is launching an investigation into the amputation of a worker’s finger at the Savannah River Site on Dec. 1, according to a letter sent to site President and CEO Stuart MacVean.
Dated March 23 but posted online on Tuesday, the letter says DoE will investigate the “facts and circumstances associated with a hand injury (finger amputation) event” reported by site contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions on December 19.
“The investigation will include onsite and/or virtual interviews with contractor personnel,” the letter said. “A request for documents to support this investigation will be provided separately via e-mail. Your cooperation to ensure timely submission of all documents to our office is appreciated.”
Joel W. Duling was appointed associate laboratory director for operational systems at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Duling joined PNNL in August 2022 as chief projects officer for the Laboratory’s Operational Systems Directorate and was named acting associate laboratory director in January.
In his new role, Duling will manage the Washington-state lab’s facilities and infrastructure; environment, health, safety, and security programs; project management; and nuclear operations. He also will steward the lab’s 10-year, $1.2-billion campus development plan and guide the Laboratory’s efforts to achieve net-zero emissions.
The United States declined to share with Russia the latest required tranche of nuclear weapon data prescribed under the New START treaty, according to John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy said in congressional testimony this week.
After Moscow decided in February to suspend participation in the treaty, which limits deployments of each country’s strategic nuclear warheads, Plumb said the Pentagon decided not to deliver a large quantity of data due by the end of March. Moscow was notified of the decision on Monday, Plumb told the House Armed Services’ strategic forces subcommittee on Tuesday.
Russia has suspended all cooperation called for under the treaty while the U.S. continues to share daily positioning information with Moscow, Plumb said. A semi-annual data exchange “on high level numbers” was due by Friday, which Russia this week told the U.S. it would not provide. “As a diplomatic countermeasure, the United States will not be providing that information back,” Plumb said. “We are going to continue to examine what other diplomatic countermeasures are appropriate. What we’re trying to do is balance both responding to Russia’s irresponsible behavior but to continue to demonstrate uh what we believe a responsible nuclear powers action should be.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he will deploy lower-yield, short-range nuclear weapons to Belarus, media reported this week.
The move is widely thought to be a political one, given that Moscow already can already target all of Europe with its various nuclear-weapon delivery vehicles.
In public comments announcing the weapons deployment, Putin compared the move to U.S. basing of nuclear-capable forces in Europe and elsewhere. “The United States has been doing this for decades,” he said. “They have long placed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies.”
Verus Research, a New Mexico-based team of scientists and engineers specializing in advanced research and technology development, announced the appointment of Melissa Sisneros as the company’s technical director for nuclear test environments.
Sisneros’ will lead the fielding of the Orthrus neutron and gamma test capability on behalf of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division. Sisneros joins Verus Research from Sandia National Laboratories, where she worked as a senior technical program manager and systems engineer supporting numerous programs, including ballistic missile tester development, integrated stockpile evaluation and surveillance, and nuclear weapon modernization programs.
