Office of Environmental Management (EM)

Effective Tuesday, May 25 fully-vaccinated workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state will no longer need to wear a face covering, the site’s manager Brian Vance said in an online memo to employees Wednesday. The directive is slated to go into effect about a week after all-hands letter from Vance to […]

Kirk Lachman, a longtime hand around the Department of Energy’s weapons complex and current field office manager of the agency’s Office of Environmental Management at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is retiring June 27. Lachman will be retiring from DOE after 30 years of federal service, a spokesperson for the agency said […]

A Northern Arizona University researcher, Michael Ketterer, recently reasserted findings from 2019 that radioactive contamination from the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio poses a concern for people outside the fence, and local leaders are using his analysis to press for federal money to replace a shuttered school. In an April 28 letter to […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 27 shipments of transuranic waste in April, which marks its busiest month since the COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) logged five months in 2020 when it received 20 or more shipments. October was the busiest month, […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state should transport between 10 and 20 shipments of transuranic material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico starting in 2028. The vast majority (99%) of the defense-related transuranic waste now at Hanford’s central plateau, in the 200 West Area, will be hauled to the […]

A three-day New Mexico Environment Department hearing on the need for a new underground shaft for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant kicked off this week with a lawyer for DOE saying the case is not about a life extension for the transuranic waste disposal site. The hearing is about efforts to “restore […]

Leo Sain, a senior executive at Amentum who has led joint ventures across the Department of Energy weapons complex, has died at age 73. Most recently Sain served as the decommissioning and demolition and waste management sector lead at Amentum. He died May 13, according to an obituary posted by Weatherford Mortuary in Oak Ridge, […]

While the numbers won’t be out for another week, House and Senate committees used Wednesday hearings to press Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and other DOE officials about the progress of nuclear cleanup. During a four-hour hearing before the House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee, Granholm said the Joe Biden administration’s fiscal 2022 budget request […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state is often described in Congressional hearings and other forums as one the most costly and complex cleanup projects in North America — if not the world. But it is this complexity that oddly appeals to David Bowen, who became the Washington state Department of Ecology’s nuclear […]

A Northern Arizona University researcher, Michael Ketterer, recently reasserted findings from 2019 that radioactive contamination from the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio poses a concern for people outside the fence, and local leaders are using his analysis to press for federal money to replace a shuttered school. In an April 28 letter to […]

While the numbers won’t be out for another week, House and Senate committees used Wednesday hearings to press Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and other DOE officials about the progress of nuclear cleanup. During a four-hour hearing before the House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee, Granholm said the Joe Biden administration’s fiscal 2022 budget request […]

The Department of Energy’s largest and most complex nuclear cleanup property is looking at relaxing its COVID-19 protocols soon but has made no changes yet, Hanford’s site manager Brian Vance said in a Tuesday memo to all employees. Likewise,  the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky are “for now” keeping their […]

Leo Sain, a senior executive at Amentum who has led joint ventures across the Department of Energy weapons complex, has died at age 73. Most recently Sain served as the decommissioning and demolition and waste management sector lead at Amentum. He died May 13, according to an obituary posted by Weatherford Mortuary in Oak Ridge, […]

House and Senate subcommittees were scheduled to hold hearings about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2022 budget request on Wednesday, even though the White House was not expected to release the full budget request until May 27. The Senate-side hearing will be the first of the season dedicated to the civilian nuclear weapons programs managed […]

A three-day New Mexico Environment Department hearing on the need for a new underground shaft for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant kicked off Monday with a lawyer for DOE saying the case is not about a life extension for the transuranic waste disposal site. The hearing is about efforts to “restore a […]

Bechtel, Reston, Va., and Fluor, Irving, Texas, are leading separate bids for the potentially $10-year, $21.5 billion management and operations contract for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, people familiar with the competitive landscape said Monday. Amentum, Germantown, Md., is also in the mix as a partner, one of these people said. The Savannah […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 27 shipments of transuranic waste in April, which marks its busiest month since the COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) logged five months in 2020 when it received 20 or more shipments. October was the busiest month, […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state should transport between 10 and 20 shipments of transuranic material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico starting in 2028. The vast majority (99%) of the defense-related transuranic waste now at Hanford’s central plateau, in the 200 West Area, will be hauled to the […]

Profits were about flat at Dallas-based Jacobs in its second fiscal quarter that ended April 2, something the international engineering and construction services company attributed to its March acquisition of a 65% stake in PA Consulting, which advises energy, defense and government clients. During the same period last year, Jacobs suffered a $122 million net […]

The Salt Waste Processing Facility, the centerpiece of Department of Energy plans to empty tanks at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina of 36 million gallons of radioactive waste, is back in operation after shutting down in late March. The Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) resumed its work on a limited basis May 3, […]

Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites were tracking 76 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday, down 30 from last week and the lowest weekly case count since the fall. The DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) case numbers were last this low during early October. The figures provided via email from an EM […]

The Department of Energy considers construction of a new 2.2-million cubic yard landfill at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee vital to cleanup of contaminated sites the Y-12 National Security Complex and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a federal official said Wednesday.  The new onsite landfill will “make sure that we have enough disposal capacity,” […]

The Department of Energy is picking up its option to keep Centerra Group on through at least Oct. 7 as provider of security at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina while the agency continues to review a 10-year, $1-billion follow-on contract awarded in February to Securitas CIS. A DOE spokesperson said in an email […]

Early in-person voting started last week and runs through May 29, for the June 1 special election in New Mexico’s Congressional District 1, which is home to the Sandia National Laboratories. The seat was vacated by Rep. Debra Haaland (D), she was confirmed as the Joe Biden administration’s secretary of interior on March 16. The […]

Swift & Staley’s share of the Portsmouth Site’s infrastructure services contractor helped make the company ineligible for a small-business set-aside contract at Department of Energy’s Paducah Site, according to a ruling made public this week by the Small Business Administration. Swift & Staley’s annual receipts alone did not push it past a $41.5 million size […]

Waste Control Specialists in West Texas could remain home for up to 74 containers of radioactive waste, which Texas authorities want to evict, for three more years, under an extension announced Thursday by the Department of Energy. The DOE Office of Environmental Management’s Los Alamos field office issued a task order to keep Waste Control […]

An April 16 staff report by a federal watchdog questions if the Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration have fully learned lessons stemming from a drum breach and radiation release that shut down the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico in February 2014. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) […]

The president of News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) Glenn Morgan is leaving his post with the legacy cleanup contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and taking a job with Huntington Ingalls Industries. “I wanted to let you know that I have been called upon to fill a corporate position for […]

Swift & Staley’s share of the Portsmouth Site’s infrastructure services contractor helped make the company ineligible for a small-business set-aside contract at Department of Energy’s Paducah Site, according to a ruling made public this week by the Small Business Administration. Swift & Staley’s annual receipts alone did not push it past a $41.5 million size […]

The National Academies of Science are putting together a panel of experts to look at the thoroughness and technical quality of a recent analysis done by the Department of Energy national laboratories on supplemental treatment options for low-activity tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Nominations are due by May 21 via this […]