Amentum

The Department of Energy’s manager for the Hanford Site declined Wednesday to say how many employees have tested positive for the coronavirus so far this year at the former plutonium production complex in Washington state. “I report those numbers through headquarters now, and there is a more formal reporting process at the headquarters level,” in […]

The total number of active cases of COVID-19 at nuclear cleanup sites overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management remained high this week at 282, which is still lower than the 298 active cases during Thanksgiving week, a spokesperson said Thursday.  Active, reported cases were in the double digits as recently as […]

The venture that manages the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico will have until Dec. 21 to reply to a lawsuit brought last month by the construction contractor it fired this summer after slower-than-anticipated progress on a major new underground ventilation system. The motion for an extension, filed by Nuclear Waste […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management anticipates issuing a solicitation for a new long-term cleanup contract next month at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. That is the last request for proposal (RFP) the agency’s nuclear-cleanup office plans to issue this calendar year, according to a quarterly update posted Thursday on a federal […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could run out of space if the number of waste drums bound for the New Mexico site keeps increasing, or if a new underground accounting system is thrown out by the courts, the Government Accountability Office said Thursday. The report landed as the site, DOE’s only deep-underground […]

As is the case nationally, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on the 16 nuclear cleanup properties overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, including a death at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant that, a state regulator said, showed the site cannot protect people from the disease. The prime […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 25 shipments of transuranic waste during October, which is marginally better than the 21 shipments during the same month in 2019. That is according to DOE’s public database for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), which also shows shipments for this pandemic-hobbled year […]

The Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory has a new directory, John Wagner, who is being promoted from his current post as associate director for nuclear science and technology. Wagner has been Idaho National Laboratory’s associate director since 2017. Battelle Energy Alliance, the lab prime, announced his elevation to the top job last week. Battelle […]

The Department of Energy’s manager for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has yet to reply to a $32-million breach of contract suit filed late last month by a joint venture which had been hired to build a major new underground ventilation system. Critical Applications Alliance, a venture jointly owned by Christensen Building […]

Twelve people representing 11 companies showed up at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site Oct. 21 to take a physical tour and learn more about a potential $21-billion, long-term contract for liquid waste cleanup. In addition to Amentum, the lead partner for incumbent Savannah River Remediation, other firms who turned out are Aecon-Wachs, Akima, […]

Twelve people representing 11 companies showed up at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site Oct. 21 to take a physical tour and learn more about a potential $21-billion, long-term contract for liquid waste cleanup. In addition to Amentum, the lead partner for incumbent Savannah River Remediation, other firms who turned out are Aecon-Wachs, Akima, […]

Prospective bidders are asking the Department of Energy for some leeway on making oral presentations for a potential $21-billion long-term contract for management of liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Early this month, the department issued the request for proposals (RFP) for a potential 15-year contract for liquid waste management to […]

The Department of Energy’s underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste is succumbing to mission creep, a critic of the agency told the New Mexico Legislature’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee last week. The mission at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad “is not for defense high-level waste, commercial spent nuclear fuel, or […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration still had not at deadline released the final solicitation for the potentially $28-billion, $10-year contract to manage its two big nuclear-weapons production sites, but more information is percolating up through industry about the players interested in the deal. With the envisioned start of the transition from the Bechtel-led incumbent, Consolidated […]

The Department of Energy is entering the final phase of construction at the seventh large saltstone disposal unit at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, an agency manager said this week. Workers are currently installing a leak-proof rubber liner in the inside of the tank at Saltstone Disposal Unit-7 (SDU-7) before testing of the […]

A venture led by Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Navarro Research and Engineering is assured of becoming the new operator of 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state, now that the window for protesting DOE’s contract award to the team lapsed. The period for contesting the award to the Government Accountability Office ended Monday, two […]

The Department of Energy extended to January the transition periods for the support services and solid-waste cleanup contractors at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Transition periods for both the Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions team and the Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. are being extended until Jan. 24, the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office […]

The Department of Energy has yet to decide what exactly it will do about a contested $13-billion tank management contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state that was placed on hold in July. There are issues “that the department is still working our way through,” Hanford’s DOE site manager, Brian Vance, told an online […]

The Department of Energy extended to January the transition periods for the support services and solid-waste cleanup contractors at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Transition periods for both the Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions team and the Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. are being extended until Jan. 24, the DOE Hanford Richland Operations Office […]

The Department of Energy’s underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste is succumbing to mission creep, an agency critic told the New Mexico Legislature’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee last week. The mission at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad “is not for defense high-level waste, commercial spent nuclear fuel, or any commercial […]

The prime for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has signed a construction subcontractor to keep a major ventilation project going while a new provider is selected. Nuclear Waste Partnership said Thursday it has awarded a $3-million subcontract to Kiewit US Contractors Co. to support construction of the Safety Significant […]

As of this morning, the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has confirmed a total of 609 cases of COVID-19 among its roughly 11,000-member workforce. The numbers, posted online by the Aiken, S.C., site, represent a rise of 18 cases from the prior week’s total of 591. Also, 568 of those employees […]

Shipments to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico are down more than 40% for both the first nine months of 2020, and the just-completed 2020 fiscal year, based on figures from the site’s public database. During the first nine months of pandemic-affected 2020, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) received […]

The Department of Energy’s top brass joined the governor of Tennessee, congressmen and local dignitaries Tuesday at the Oak Ridge Site to celebrate taking down contaminated facilities at what was once the K-25 uranium enrichment complex and is now the East Tennessee Technology Park. The ceremony happened two days before two members of Energy Secretary […]

The Department of Energy’s top brass joined the governor of Tennessee, congressmen and local dignitaries Tuesday at the Oak Ridge Site to celebrate taking down contaminated facilities at what was originally the K-25 uranium enrichment complex, now the East Tennessee Technology Park. “The work that this entailed is simply staggering,” Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state can use education along with the specter of financial loss in pushing ethical standards for contractors, the site’s local fed said recently.  The DOE has mandated ethics programs for major contractors and this effort is “very similar to a safety program” in that it’s designed to […]

Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. kicked off its 60-day transition period this week to become the new major remediation contractor at the Central Plateau area of Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, under a potential 10-year, $10-billion agreement. On Dec. 4 the joint venture comprising Amentum, Fluor and Atkins will take over from […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state needs to be better prepared to cope with additional failure of single-shell tanks holding radioactive wastes, according to the agency’s Office of Inspector General. That is a key takeaway from a report, dated Sept. 30 and posted this week. If many existing underground tanks fail there […]

The liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina hired 151 new employees with an average age of 37 during fiscal 2020. As a result, the average age of the 2,600-person workforce at Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation (SRR) is 48-years old, Phil Breidenbach, president & project manager of the […]

Joe Franco, the Department of Energy’s deputy manager at the Hanford Site’s Richland Operations Office in Washington state, is leaving the agency to become a special adviser to the prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Amentum-led Nuclear Waste Partnership said in a Thursday press release that Franco will become special adviser to the […]