Hanford Site

The Department of Energy could formally reply to subcontractor complaints at the Hanford Site in Washington state “within the next few days or the next few weeks,” Brian Vance, the top manager at the facility said Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management executive made his comments during a virtual meeting of the Hanford Advisory […]

A Department of Labor board last week ruled against a Hanford contractor’s appeal of a 2016 decision favoring two whistleblowers at the former plutonium production site in Washington state. Labor’s Administrative Review Board on March 10 upheld federal Administrative Law Judge Christopher Larson’s 2016 ruling that Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) experts Kirtley Clem and Matthew […]

Bechtel National earned 70%, or $5.54 million out of a potential $7.88 million, for its work on the Waste Treatment Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state in 2020. That is according to a fee scorecard released this week by the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management for the 2020 calendar year.  […]

The Department of Energy, Washington State and the Environmental Protection Agency are meeting more frequently these days to negotiate changes to legally binding Hanford cleanup deadlines that longstanding technical challenges — and later, COVID-19 — may have made untenable, a Washington state official said Wednesday. “I am optimistic on some progress we have made,” Bowen […]

The Department of Energy could formally reply to subcontractor complaints at the Hanford Site in Washington state “within the next few days or the next few weeks,” Brian Vance, the top manager at the facility said Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management executive made his comments during a virtual meeting of the Hanford Advisory […]

Bechtel National earned 70%, or $5.54 million out of a potential $7.88 million, for its work on the Waste Treatment Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state in 2020. That is according to a fee scorecard released this week by the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management for the 2020 calendar year.  […]

A Department of Labor board last week ruled against a Hanford contractor’s appeal of a 2016 decision favoring two whistleblowers at the former plutonium production site in Washington state. Labor’s Administrative Review Board on March 10 upheld federal Administrative Law Judge Christopher Larson’s 2016 ruling that Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) experts Kirtley Clem and Matthew […]

The Department of Energy could lengthen contract transition periods under the new procurement model, possibly to 120 days, federal officials said Wednesday during the online Waste Management Symposia. Transition to the Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. venture at the Hanford Site in Washington state, which ended in January, showed 60 days is insufficient to sort […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee unanimously approved David Turk to be deputy secretary of energy in a roll call vote Thursday, clearing the way for the full Senate to confirm the former Biden staffer and Obama administration official for the agency’s No. 2 job. The Senate had not scheduled a confirmation vote for […]

Dae Chung, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) associate principal deputy assistant secretary for corporate services, defended his organization’s small business record during the online Waste Management Symposia this week. His comments come after a U.S. senator, among others, complained that new procedures seem to be hurting small contractors in Washington state […]

With top managers stressing the need to remain vigilant, the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management had 101 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 within the past week, continuing a downward trend that started in late January.  The figure, shared via email Thursday by an Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson, reflects a sizable drop from the […]

Teams will soon be finalized to compete for the Department of Energy’s potential $26-billion Hanford Integrated Tank Disposition Contract in Washington state, three industry sources said recently. Two of the three expect a very small number of teams, perhaps as few as two, will be in the mix for the contract arising from the draft […]

Incumbent subcontractors that worked under one Department of Energy prime contract won’t necessarily be kept on under follow-up contracts, unless they were members of a winning proposal team, a top nuclear-cleanup procurement official said this week. Some smaller companies at the Hanford Site in Washington State “were surprised” when DOE ordered new prime contractors who […]

The Department of Energy could lengthen contract transition periods under the new procurement model, possibly to 120 days, federal officials said Wednesday during the online Waste Management Symposia. Transition to the Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. venture at the Hanford Site in Washington state, which ended in January, showed 60 days is insufficient to sort […]

On March 24, 2020, when the Department of Energy altered operations to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hanford Site in Washington state rapidly went from having 400 to 4,500 people telecommuting, the head of the property’s service contractor told the online Waste Management Symposia on Tuesday. The transition to mass telework cleanup property occurred […]

Dae Chung, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) associate principal deputy assistant secretary for corporate services, defended his organization’s small business record during the online Waste Management Symposia Monday. His comments come after a U.S. senator, among others, complained that new procedures seem to be hurting small contractors in Washington state that […]

Teams will soon be finalized to compete for the Department of Energy’s potential $26-billion Hanford Integrated Tank Disposition Contract in Washington state, three industry sources said late last week. Two of the three expect a very small number of teams, perhaps as few as two, will be in the mix for the contract arising from […]

The Waste Management Symposia, a gathering of industry, government and academic nuclear waste specialists that can normally draw about 2,400 participants to Phoenix during March, starts today online with several sessions about the Department of Energy’s cleanup office. This year’s event, exclusive virtual due to COVID-19 precautions, kicks off at about 10 a.m. Eastern Time […]

Rebutting a recent letter from Washington state and the Yakama Tribe, local officials from communities around the Hanford Site this week defended the Department of Energy’s 2019 policy change on high-level waste. In a letter dated Wednesday, mayors and other officials from Benton and Franklin Counties said they are disappointed to see the state, the […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has now logged two straight weeks with confirmed, active COVID-19 cases below the 200 mark. There are 139 confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 within the nuclear cleanup complex, an Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson said by email Thursday morning. That is down from 180 cases last week and […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management still has much work to do on oversight of contracts and operations, the Government Accountability Office said this week in its annual update on high-dollar, “high-risk” issues. The DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which seemed to get a more generous review, “has continued to show leadership […]

President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of energy, David Turk, pledged Thursday to work with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), over concerns a new DOE approach toward subcontractors might hurt small businesses around the Hanford Site in Washington state. “I know it is a priority for you, it will be a priority for me if […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management still has much work to do on oversight of contracts and operations, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday in its annual update on high-dollar, “high-risk” issues. The DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which seemed to get a more generous review, “has continued to show leadership commitment […]

The Washington state government and others asked new Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to rescind the Department of Energy’s recent decision to reclassify some high-level waste, including waste in the Hanford Site’s underground tanks. On Friday, less than a day after Granholm’s swearing in, the Washington Department of Ecology, Washington Attorney General Robert Ferguson (D), […]

The Department of Energy Thursday issued a draft solicitation for a new long-term mega-contract potentially worth $26.5-billion to both oversee tank closures and run the new Waste Treatment Plant being built by Bechtel National at the Hanford Site in Washington state. In a press release announcing the new draft request for proposals (RFP), the DOE […]

It was a down earnings period for Texas-based Fluor in the 4th quarter, which the government contractor largely attributed to delayed spending due to the COVID-19 pandemic along with winding down low-profit infrastructure projects. For both the quarter and the year, the company winnowed its year-over-year losses as revenue fell, according to an earnings release […]

During an earnings call Tuesday, BWXT Technologies President and CEO Rex Geveden sounded less like a boss disheartened by seeing a $13-billion contract award undone than someone eager to land a bigger payday before long. In December, the Department of Energy cancelled the Tank Closure Contract that a BWXT-led team won in May after losing […]

Germantown, Md.-based Amentum recently marked its first full year as a privately-held company after being spun off by Los Angeles-based AECOM. On Jan. 31, 2020, AEMCOM closed on the $2.4 billion sale of its AECOM Management Services division to affiliates of New York-based investment firms Lindsay Goldberg and American Securities LLC. The new owners re-christened […]

Hanford contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company recently awarded Apollo Mechanical Contractors a $9.5 million contract for work on the site’s Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility.  Apollo’s job is to install equipment to transfer almost 2,000 capsules containing highly radioactive cesium and strontium from the water-filled Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility (WESF) pools to a planned […]

Harsh winter weather this week in the Southwest and West scrambled work schedules at a couple of nuclear sites around the Department of Energy’s weapons complex. The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico was closed on Tuesday due to snow and wintry weather and the federal complex also had a delayed opening on Wednesday, […]