Office of Environmental Management (EM)

Crews handling legacy cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory were relieved last summer to find an underground chromium plume remained static during three months of bare bones operations due to COVID-19 restrictions. “One of our concerns was the possibility of plume rebound,” where it might drift closer to local drinking water […]

Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based RSI Services is the winner of a potential five-year, $22-million small business contract to remediate Naval Reactors sites overseen by the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration in West Milton, N.Y. The set-aside cleanup contract for the Kesselring Site was announced Tuesday by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Under the […]

During a brief appearance at an online conference Tuesday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm simultaneously praised and challenged the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup community. “This industry is made up of some of the nation’s best engineers and scientists,” Granholm told the Waste Management Symposia conference, which in non-pandemic years happens in Phoenix. At the same […]

While General Atomics, GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse Government Services are companies that know their way around nuclear reactors, representatives from the firms said Tuesday they find it tough to penetrate the procurement market for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.   But the DOE Environmental Management (EM) office wants to increase the contractor pool serving […]

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 […]

The Department of Energy’s long-awaited Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory could start operating in mid-fall, perhaps October, a Fluor Idaho executive told the online Waste Management Symposia Monday. The facility is now in the final weeks of an extended maintenance period that will precede a 50-day test run and eventual approval […]

Although COVID-19 vaccines are starting to trickle across the U.S. population, it is difficult to say when most cleanup workers at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will receive their shots, a senior agency official said Monday at the all-online Waste Management Symposia conference. Environmental Management (EM)’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Todd Shrader would […]

Construction costs for a new ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could be up to $450 million, pending a recalculation, a Department of Energy official said Monday. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s (WIPP) planned Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) “has a cost range of $400 million up to $450 million,” Janelle Armijo, […]

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 […]

French waste and water management corporation Veolia suffered a setback last week in its attempt to take over the Suez Group, another French conglomerate in the same business. In dueling press releases Feb. 25 and Feb. 26, neither multinational corporation mentioned the effects of this takeover attempt will have on either’s North American operations, which […]

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 […]

Due to a shortfall in the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund, the Department of Energy is drawing upon other money in fiscal 2021 to help pay for cleanup of the government’s shuttered uranium enrichment plants. The Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning (UED&D) Fund was budgeted by Congress during the current fiscal year at $841 […]

The Department of Energy is testing Saltwaste Disposal Unit 7, a key part of the Savannah River Site’s liquid waste cleanup effort, for leaks, the agency said this week. Amentum-led contractor Savannah River Remediation is conducting what DOE described in a press release as a liquid tightness test, which involves pumping 33 million gallons of […]

After the COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. in 2020, Department of Energy contractor North Wind Portage actually hauled more contaminated material away from an old uranium ore processing site outside Moab, Utah, than it did during a corresponding period in 2019. That is according to data posted online by the DOE Office of Environmental Management […]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a petition to hear a challenge brought by New Mexico-based Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety over a Clean Water Act permit at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. The high court’s denial of certiorari, or “cert” in legal shorthand, means a decision last April by the […]

A federal magistrate judge in Ohio will hold a preliminary pre-trial conference by telephone March 25 in a lawsuit filed in September against current and former contractors for the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The corporate defendants in the case on Tuesday asked the judge to throw out the litigation, arguing in a […]

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 […]

With the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico undergoing its regular annual maintenance outage, there were only three shipments of transuranic waste to the underground salt mine during February. Two of the three shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) during the month came from the Los Alamos National Laboratory […]

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 […]

With the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico undergoing its regular annual maintenance outage, there were only three shipments of transuranic waste to the underground salt mine during February. Two of the three shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) during the month came from the Los Alamos National Laboratory […]

A federal magistrate judge in Ohio will hold a preliminary pre-trial conference by telephone March 25 in a lawsuit filed in September against current and former contractors for the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The corporate defendants in the case on Tuesday asked the judge to throw out the litigation, arguing in a […]

The Department of Energy plans this week to test Saltwaste Disposal Unit 7, a key part of the Savannah River Site’s liquid waste cleanup effort, for leaks, the agency said Monday. Amentum-led contractor Savannah River Remediation is conducting what DOE described in a press release as a liquid tightness test, which involves pumping 33 million […]

After the COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. in 2020, Department of Energy contractor North Wind Portage actually hauled more contaminated material away from an old uranium ore processing site outside Moab, Utah, than it did during a corresponding period in 2019. That is according to data posted online by the DOE Office of Environmental Management […]

Due to a shortfall in the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund, the Department of Energy is drawing upon other money in fiscal 2021 to help pay for cleanup of the government’s shuttered uranium enrichment plants. The Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning (UED&D) Fund was budgeted by Congress during the current fiscal year at $841 […]

The top executive for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will brief the first meeting of the nuclear cleanup’s branch’s advisory board during the Joe Biden administration Wednesday March 24 starting at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. In addition to remarks from DOE’s acting assistant secretary for environmental management, William (Ike) White, the Environmental […]

As of December, roughly 70% or 11.2 million of the 16 million tons of contaminated debris and soil had been hauled away from an old uranium mill outside Moab, Utah, according to data released by the Department of Energy last week in for a new contract for the project. The DOE in February released its […]