Bechtel

It might take until March for the U.S. Government Accountability Office to explain its recent rulings in two protests against a $4.7 billion liquid waste management contract at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The agency on Feb. 8 upheld one protest and rejected another, but has not released the decisions. […]

Members of the Pacific Northwest congressional delegation are prepared to fight a $230 million budget cut for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. If approved by Congress, funding for cleanup of the former plutonium production complex would drop to roughly $2.185 billion in the DOE fiscal 2019 budget proposal issued Monday. The […]

The Trump administration is again proposing to increase the budget for the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office, to $6.6 billion for fiscal 2019. That would be $182 million above the fiscal 2017 enacted level and $100 million above the amount proposed for the current budget year for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). Since the […]

While it sustained one contract protest, the U.S. Government Accountability Office on Friday did not weigh in on which proposal the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management should have selected for a $4.7 billion liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. “GAO’s decision expresses no view as to the merits […]

Although details are being kept under wraps by a protective order, the U.S. Government Accountability Office on Friday sustained a protest brought by one losing bidding team against a $4.7 billion contract the Department of Energy awarded in October for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The GAO indicated it has […]

Legislation that allows New Mexico to collect gross receipts taxes from nonprofit entities that run Department of Energy national laboratories there flew through the state Senate and now is set for its first committee stop in the House of Representatives. The House Taxation and Revenue Committee had not yet scheduled action on the bill at […]

Layoff notices will be delivered this week to up to 60 workers at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant as progress is made in completing much of the remaining engineering, procurement, and construction at some plant facilities. The facilities nearing completion are needed for the Waste Treatment Plant to begin converting low-activity radioactive waste at […]

Legislation that allows New Mexico to collect gross receipts taxes from nonprofit entities that run Department of Energy national laboratories there flew through the state Senate and now is set for its first committee stop in the House of Representatives. The House Taxation and Revenue Committee had not yet scheduled action on the bill at […]

Two major players in the Department of Energy cleanup complex, AECOM and Jacobs, will post financial results this week for the final three months of 2017. Los Angeles-based AECOM will discuss earnings for the first quarter of its fiscal 2018 during a conference call with analysts at noon Eastern time Tuesday. Dallas-based Jacobs, which in […]

Bechtel National and Purdue University have teamed up on a bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory after incumbent Los Alamos National Security — a partnership that includes Bechtel — is off the job later this year, according to a pair of sources. Bechtel has been the lead corporate partner on the incumbent since […]

Stoller Newport News Nuclear (SN3) President Nick Lombardo has been tapped to lead the management team for the joint venture recently awarded the $1.39 billion legacy cleanup contract at the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Lombardo will serve as program manager for Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos, which will be responsible […]

A New Mexico state Senate panel on Friday unanimously approved a bill that would ensure even nonprofit managers of Department of Energy national laboratories in the state would pay a gross receipts tax. Following approval by the New Mexico Senate’s Corporations and Transportation Committee, the next and last committee stop in the chamber before a […]

The University of California and its mystery teammates have submitted a “clever” bid to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for the next 10 years, the regent in charge of the institution’s national lab activities said in a public meeting late Wednesday. “We do have the most excellent bid,” Ellen Tauscher, the incoming chair […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos said Wednesday it has received notice from the Department of Energy to start the transition into its $1.39 billion contract for cleanup services at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The Stoller Newport News Nuclear-BWX Technologies team, which was named as the contract winner in December over two […]

Setting aside the effect of major spinoffs in 2017, Honeywell, a major player in U.S. nuclear weapons and waste programs, saw sizable sales and earnings boosts last year, while profits rose in the Aerospace segment that houses two of its big Department of Energy contracts. Excluding the effects of the spinoffs, Honeywell’s full-year per-share earnings rose […]

A suspicious package triggered an emergency response at the Pantex nuclear-weapon assembly plant in Amarillo, Texas, on Jan. 16, but the details are on a strictly need-to-know basis, according to an official report from the Department of Energy. “On January 16, 2018, an operational emergency was declared, and the Emergency Response Organization was activated,” reads […]

While no one was hurt and no special nuclear material was damaged, the outgoing prime contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory lost about $3 million in award fees in fiscal 2017 because it broke Department of Energy rules and shipped plutonium by plane instead of by truck. In June 2017, Los Alamos National Security […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration dinged Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) for delays on a nuclear-bomb life-extension program in fiscal 2017 in a generally positive performance evaluation report published Thursday. Overall, CNS earned about $36 million in fees for managing the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency’s Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex in Tennessee and Pantex Plant in […]

The Department of Energy praised the prime contractor at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for on-time work on nuclear warheads and bombs in fiscal 2017, but clipped some award fee dollars because of delays with electrical upgrades at the California weapons lab. Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS) earned about $40 million in fees for 2017: […]

A $100-million-plus project to dramatically increase the computing power available for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s simulated nuclear weapons tests has cleared its final environmental hurdle, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. In a regulatory document called a supplement analysis, the agency’s National Nuclear Security Administration said “no further NEPA [National Environmental Protection Act] documentation is required” […]

Washington Closure Hanford has reached a settlement agreement in principle with the U.S. Department of Justice in a civil lawsuit over subcontracting at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Justice Department has accused the former Hanford cleanup prime contractor of awarding small business subcontracts to front companies. Washington Closure’s contract for environmental […]

A total of $211 million was spent on procurements for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant in fiscal 2017, according to contractor Bechtel National. The plant is being built to turn up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste held in underground tanks into a stable glass form for disposal. “Procurement opportunities have changed as work […]

The Energy Department could in late February issue its final request for proposals for construction of the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., according to recently released presolicitation documents. The agency expects prospective bidders will have 30 calendar days from the date of the final RFP […]

A $100-million-plus project to dramatically increase the computing power available for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s simulated nuclear weapons tests has cleared its final environmental hurdle, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. In a regulatory document called a supplement analysis, the agency’s National Nuclear Security Administration said “no further NEPA [National Environmental Protection Act] documentation […]

The Energy Department could issue its final request for proposals in late February for construction of the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., according to recently released presolicitation documents. The agency expects prospective bidders will have 30 calendar days from the date of the final RFP […]

With fewer than six months left on the incumbent’s contract, the Department of Energy still has not started competition for the next Savannah River Site management and operations deal — the pact that includes running the National Nuclear Security Administration’s tritium program. The NNSA extracts tritium gas, which boosts the yield of nuclear weapons, at the […]

Bechtel National (BNI) has met a contract milestone in construction of the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant worth an incentive fee of $4.275 million, the company and the Department of Energy announced Tuesday. The milestone was for electrical work at the plant’s Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility, with bulk cable electrical installation completed nearly four months […]

The liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and a former employee have received additional time to produce names and contact information for potential witnesses in a discrimination suit against the company. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett on Wednesday granted the joint request submitted five days earlier by plaintiff Adrienne Saulsberry and defendant […]

Several management changes have been made at the Hanford Site tank farms and Waste Treatment Plant project to help meet the Department of Energy’s goal of vitrifying tank waste as soon as 2022. A new general manager has been named for Waste Treatment Completion Co. (WTCC), the subcontractor created for construction, startup, and commissioning of […]

The Hanford Site has five major procurements in the pipeline between now and fiscal 2020, according to an announcement published Jan. 3 by the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC). Three of the five solicitations could extend for up to 10 years; a fourth for up to seven years; and the length […]