Hanford Site

Crews at the Hanford Site in Washington state on Tuesday night started injecting grout to stabilize the Hanford PUREX Plant waste storage tunnel discovered last spring to be partially collapsed, but halted work as some dirt began to subside into the tunnel, the Department of Energy said Wednesday. After the breach in the top of […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday finalized the membership package to reconstitute the Hanford Advisory Board (HAB), which has been unable to establish a quorum to conduct business for three months. Membership for about half the members of the board expired at the end of June. Half of the members and their alternates for 32 […]

The leaders of site advisory boards for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management complex will discuss waste cleanup with DOE officials, and members of the public, on Oct. 18-19 in Kennewick, Wash. The chairs and vice-chairs of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB) local boards meet twice per year to get updates […]

Plaintiffs and defendants on Friday asked a federal judge for a fifth delay in the scheduled trial for a lawsuit demanding better worker protection from chemical vapors at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The delay would give the parties further time to pursue a settlement. When parties to the lawsuit announced in […]

Jacobs Engineering will be required to mitigate an apparent conflict of interest at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in its planned acquisition of CH2M Hill. Jacobs announced in June that it planned to purchase its fellow DOE contractor for $2.85 billion, with the deal set to close by the end of the year. Jacobs […]

The Department of Energy expects to begin transferring cesium and strontium capsules from underwater storage at the Hanford Site in Washington state to dry storage in 2022. The latest step toward that goal has been identifying a proposed location at Hanford for dry storage and completing a conceptual design of a new concrete pad storage […]

The House of Representatives is calling for a “full overhaul” of the federal program that provides money to local communities near large Energy Department sites that cannot be taxed. That would include terminating all existing agreements, according to legislation passed in the House earlier this month. Given that localities cannot tax property owned by the […]

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has dismissed a 2016 class action lawsuit demanding that the Department of Energy reinstate pension benefits for up to 500 people for work performed at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Chief Judge Susan G. Braden ruled Sept. 22 that plaintiffs who worked for Lockheed Martin Services Inc. had […]

The Department of Energy expects to begin transferring cesium and strontium capsules from underwater storage at the Hanford Site in Washington state to dry storage in 2022. The latest step toward that goal has been identifying a proposed location at Hanford for dry storage and completing a conceptual design of a new concrete pad storage […]

Jacobs Engineering will be required to mitigate an apparent conflict of interest at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in its planned acquisition of CH2M Hill. Jacobs announced in June that it planned to purchase its fellow DOE contractor for $2.85 billion, with the deal set to close by the end of the year. Jacobs […]

The House of Representatives is calling for a “full overhaul” of the federal program that provides money to local communities near large Energy Department sites that cannot be taxed. Given that localities cannot tax property owned by the U.S. government, Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) programs have served as a means to provide federal funding […]

Attorneys for Mission Support Alliance (MSA) say the Hanford Site support-services contractor had good reason to fire an employee who filed a lawsuit alleging retaliation. The attorney for the former manager, Julie Atwood, claims she was targeted by upper management who did not value strong women. Lawyers made their opening statements in the Benton County […]

A Hanford Site subcontractor has agreed to pay $2 million to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act in connection with small business subcontracts, the Department of Justice announced Thursday. Federal Engineers & Constructors (FE&C) of Richland has long maintained it did nothing improper and admitted no liability in the settlement agreement. The settlement […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology is giving the Department of Energy more time to submit a proposal for safe storage of radioactive waste in the Hanford Site’s two PUREX Plant tunnels. The deadline to submit the information in the form of a draft modification to the Hanford RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) dangerous […]

The siting, construction, and operation of a proposed dry capsule storage area for the Hanford Site’s cesium and strontium capsules will be discussed at a meeting Thursday in Richland, Wash. The capsules will be moved from underwater storage at the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility in central Hanford due to concerns that a severe earthquake […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology is giving the Department of Energy more time to submit a proposal for safe storage of radioactive waste in the Hanford Site’s two PUREX Plant tunnels. The deadline to submit the information in the form of a draft modification to the Hanford RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) dangerous […]

DOE to Skip Another Hanford Cleanup Life-Cycle Report The Department of Energy will not be required to issue an annual report in January outlining the remaining costs and schedule for cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state. The annual Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule and Cost Report has been mandatory since 2010, when it was […]

Contractor Washington River Protection Solutions is ending fiscal 2017 with two successful evaporation campaigns that have freed up enough of the Hanford Site’s limited double-shell tank space to store 525,000 gallons of waste. Material from 149 single-shell tanks is being emptied into the site’s 27 double-shell tanks at Hanford that remain in service until the […]

The Environmental Protection Agency has not made a permanent plan for management of its office at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Instead, the EPA on Monday assigned two staffers at its Hanford Project Office to fill in as acting manager over the next eight months. The move came after Dennis Faulk, who […]

Perma-Fix Environmental Services President and CEO Lou Centofanti on Monday formally stepped down from the top spot he has held for more than two decades, replaced by the company’s chief operating officer. Centofanti founded the Atlanta-based nuclear services and waste management provider in 1991, and served two extended stints as president and chief executive officer: […]

Within recent days, the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico has received its 60th shipment since it resumed receiving radioactive waste from other Department of Energy sites in April. WIPP is the nation’s sole permanent repository for transuranic waste, and its nearly three-year closure following a February 2014 radiation release left shipments stranded […]

With a large budget request, a programmatic review process encompassing top officials at Department of Energy headquarters and sites, and political appointees who seem to share a “bias for action,” there is cause for optimism about increasing the pace of cleanup of DOE’s nuclear legacy, officials said Wednesday. That was the sense that emerged following […]

Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management James Owendoff said Wednesday not to expect a major formal “list” of objectives to be published from his recently completed 45-day review of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office. “There is not a list out there per se,” he said during DOE’s National Cleanup Workshop in Alexandria, […]

Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette used an appearance before the National Cleanup Workshop on Wednesday to both praise the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management’s accomplishments and pledge a commitment to shorter cleanup timelines during the Trump administration. The recently sworn-in official pointed to improvements at the Hanford Site in Washington state, by far the […]

Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management James Owendoff said Wednesday not to expect any big formal “list” of objectives to be published from his recently completed 45-day review of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office. There has been much buzz about the 45-day review since Owendoff was named to head DOE’s Office of […]

The Department of Energy will not be required to issue an annual report in January outlining the remaining costs and schedule for cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state. The annual Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule and Cost Report has been mandatory since 2010, when it was added to the Tri-Party Agreement as part of […]

The Environmental Protection Agency has not made a permanent plan for management of its office at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Instead, the EPA on Monday assigned two staffers at its Hanford Project Office to fill in as acting manager over the next eight months. The move came after Dennis Faulk, who […]

Incumbent Wastren Advantage and nearly 20 other companies sent representatives to the August industry day for the next management and services contract for the Hanford Site’s 222-S analytical laboratory, according to the newly posted attendance sheet. Other attendees were familiar names in the Department of Energy complex, including Westinghouse Government Services, Navarro Research and Engineering, […]

The general manager of Waste Treatment Completion Co., the new subcontractor for the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, is on medical leave. Acting general manager Mike Costas is filling in for general manager Scott Oxenford. Costas previously served as the manager of functions for the Waste Treatment Plant, which included […]

SUMMERLIN, Nev. — The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) is establishing a new unit that will focus on completing the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant, Roger Jarrell, senior adviser to the secretary of energy for environmental management, said Tuesday. Efforts are being made to streamline management decisions at EM, a roughly $6 billion-per-year […]