Hanford Site

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, where daytime high temperatures are in the triple-digits, should be prepared for potential power outages lasting up to four hours on Tuesday, according to an online advisory to employees. “Employees that can telework should telework,” according to the advisory posted online by Leidos-led services […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state are this week coping with what the National Weather Service described in a Monday bulletin as “dangerous heat.” At deadline, the high for Monday was forecast to reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit with daytime highs expected to remain above 100 degrees F throughout the week. […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management currently has 48 active confirmed cases of COVID-19, which is five less than a week ago, a spokesperson for the cleanup office said in a Thursday email. The number of weekly confirmed cases in the cleanup complex stayed within a tight range of 47 to 53 for […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday morning her agency’s Office of Environmental Management remains on track to commence treatment of low-activity tank waste by the end of 2023 at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The startup of direct feed low activity waste (DFLAW) operations would mark the beginning […]

The Central Plateau Cleanup Co. will begin cocooning the K East Reactor later this year, Brian Stickney, the Department of Energy’s deputy Hanford manager for the agency’s Richland office, said last week.  Stickney spoke June 16 at a public briefing on Hanford in general for the public. The briefing was conducted via Internet with about […]

Bid protests of large federal contracts are a fact of life, a top acquisition manager at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said during an online forum Thursday. This is evidenced by the fact that two contract awards have been challenged in a little more than a week with the Government Accountability Office […]

For the second time in two weeks, a senator from Washington state insisted Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm raise the Joe Biden administration’s financial commitment to long-term Hanford Site cleanup and continue payments to localities bordering Department of Energy nuclear facilities. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) hammered at the topics during Granholm’s Wednesday appearance before the […]

Final solicitations are coming this autumn for multibillion-dollar contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Department of Energy said Wednesday. The final request for proposals (RFP) for the potential $21.5-billion Savannah River Site Management and Operating Contract should hit the street in September while the potential […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and the acting chief of DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, Charles Verdon, were to face questions from a Senate Appropriations Committee panel at 10 a.m. for the first time since the Joe Biden administration rolled out its Department of Energy budget request for fiscal 2022. The hearing by the […]

The Central Plateau Cleanup Co. will begin cocooning the K East Reactor later this year, Brian Stickney, the Department of Energy’s deputy Hanford manager for the agency’s Richland office, said last week.  Stickney spoke Wednesday at a public briefing on Hanford in general for the public. The briefing was conducted via Internet with about 150 […]

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) used a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday to question Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on why the Joe Biden administration’s $7.6-billion budget request for nuclear cleanup trims funding for the Hanford Site during fiscal 2022. The White House has proposed to split about $2.47 billion between Hanford’s two […]

The Department of Energy expects the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could receive up to 14 shipments of transuranic material a week in fiscal year 2022, which starts Oct. 1. The DOE Office of Environmental Management rate of shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) should go from 10 per week to 14 per week […]

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) used a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday to question Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on why the Joe Biden administration’s $7.6-billion budget request for nuclear cleanup trims funding for the Hanford Site during fiscal 2022. The White House has proposed to split about $2.47 billion between Hanford’s two […]

The Hanford Site in Washington State would receive a haircut under President Joe Biden’s budget request for the Department of Energy in fiscal 2022, but still account for nearly a third of the entire $7.6-billion budget sought for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Should the spending package for cleanup at the former […]

The Department of Energy’s environmental liability, which stands at more than a half-trillion dollars, continues to grow and most of it is concentrated in the agency’s nuclear cleanup office, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday in an update to Congress. The DOE liability stands at $512 billion as of fiscal 2020, which is the most […]

Frank Sheppard, former Parsons senior vice president and project manager of the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, is now part of a senior leadership board with Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), a company spokesperson confirmed Thursday. Parsons joined Huntington Ingalls in January and “is part of […]

The April announcement from the Department of Energy that the B-109 tank is leaking at the Hanford Site in Washington state is not a cause for alarm, site manager Brian Vance said this week. The single-shell tank is leaking at the rate of about 1,000 to 1,500 gallons per year, Vance told an online meeting […]

The Joe Biden administration’s $7.6-billion budget request for the Office of Environmental Management was the largest request for nuclear-weapons cleanup since 2015, the office’s acting head told contractors Thursday. Biden’s ask is the “largest administrative request for environmental management that I can recall,” William (Ike) White, acting assistant secretary for environmental management, told the Energy […]

While not divulging details yet, the manager of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state says the complex will loosen its COVID-19 protocols for fully-vaccinated workers next week. The relaxed rules will technically go into effect Friday, which is not a workday at the site, Brian Vance, the top federal boss at the […]

The April announcement from the Department of Energy that the B-109 tank is leaking at the Hanford Site in Washington state is not a cause for alarm, site manager Brian Vance said Wednesday. The single-shell tank is leaking at the rate of about 1,000 to 1,500 gallons per year, Vance told an online meeting of […]

While not divulging details yet, the manager of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state says the complex will loosen its COVID-19 protocols for fully-vaccinated workers next week. The relaxed rules will technically go into effect Friday, which is not a workday at the site, Brian Vance, the top federal boss at the […]

The Hanford Site in Washington State would receive a haircut under President Joe Biden’s budget request for the Department of Energy in fiscal 2022, but still account for nearly a third of the entire $7.6-billion budget sought for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Should the spending package for cleanup at the former […]

The Department of Energy’s environmental liability, which stands at more than a half-trillion dollars, continues to grow and most of it is concentrated in the agency’s nuclear cleanup office, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday in an update to Congress. The DOE liability stands at $512 billion as of fiscal 2020, which is the most […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology will continue so-called “holistic” negotiations on Hanford Site cleanup milestones with the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency at least through the end of June, a state spokesman said this week. “We do have authorization to continue talks through June. No timeline yet for documentation of an […]

CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. , a former Hanford prime contractor, has agreed to pay a $3.04 million settlement to the feds for falsely and knowingly claiming two subcontractors were in Historically Underutilized Business Zones. However, CH2M Hill does not admit guilt in agreeing to the payment. Until its contract expired early this year, CH2M […]

The Department of Energy said this week that rubble removal at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant in Washington state is resuming after an extended COVID-19 hiatus. After taking down the last major processing facility at the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), DOE said last February it anticipated removing all the rubble from the site by […]

The Department of Energy said Tuesday that rubble removal at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant in Washington state is resuming after an extended COVID-19 hiatus. After taking down the last major processing facility at the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), DOE said last February it anticipated removing all the rubble from the site by summer […]

The Joe Biden administration Friday afternoon proposed level-funding the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management at about $7.6-billion during fiscal 2022, which begins in a little more than four months. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told Congress recently that the request for the budget year starting Oct. 1 would “sustain” cleanup of nuclear sites […]

The Department of Energy has named Brian Stickney deputy manager and chief operating officer for the Richland Operations Office at the Hanford Site in Washington state effective this week. Stickney had been acting as deputy manager since October following the retirement of Joe Franco, Hanford’s site manager Brian Vance announced in a May 19 email […]

For the second time in three weeks, the number of confirmed active cases of COVID-19 at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management worksites is below triple-digits. There are currently 65 active COVID-19 cases in the Environmental Management (EM) complex, a DOE spokesperson said by email Thursday. It represents a big drop from the […]