Office of Environmental Management (EM)

Randall Hendrickson is now the deputy chief of corporate services at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, according to the latest organizational chart dated Feb. 11. The job, which reports to the Environmental Management (EM) office’s associate principal deputy assistant secretary Dae Chung, was vacant as recently as Jan. 28, according to prior […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received 20 shipments of transuranic waste during January, which represents its highest monthly total since October, according to the facility’s online waste information database. There were 12 shipments from the Idaho National Laboratory and eight from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. […]

The Washington Department of Ecology is taking public comment through March 25 on proposed modifications to the state’s permit for key equipment used to help control liquid waste volume in underground tanks at the Department of Energy’s Hanford site. The original transfer lines that connect double-shell tanks holding radioactive waste to the 242-A Evaporator flunked […]

The New Mexico Environment Department plans consider the Department of Energy’s plan to sink a new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a Zoom hearing on May 17, an environmental activist told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. The first day of the hearing will run from 12 noon through 4 p.m. Mountain Time […]

President Joe Biden’s nomination of David Turk to be the deputy secretary of energy was formally sent to the Senate late Thursday and referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The Senate was not in session Monday due to the Presidents Day holiday and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee had not […]

Non-essential workers in many areas around the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state are staying home Monday due to adverse weather, according to an advisory posted on an operations website run by a contractor. The stay-home advisory applied to non-essential day shift workers north and south of the Wye Barricade, including Richland, according […]

The New Mexico Environment Department has scheduled a virtual community engagement meeting Feb. 25 to discuss issues on the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, including radioactive contamination found on a public road  outside the federal complex. The session, which will be held via Webex, is planned from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Mountain Time. […]

An article in the Feb. 9 Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“DOE Moves Closer to Cleaning Up Major Transuranic Tranche at Idaho”] should have reported that shipment of 5,700 cubic meters of transuranic waste remaining in interim storage at the Idaho National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is expected to take […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the ExchangeMonitor staff is tracking this week. February 16 Bid deadline for proposals on the potential $8.3-billion Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup Contract in Tennessee. 

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management selected Herndon, Va.-based SRS Critical Infrastructure Security as the winner of the new Security Services Contract, potentially worth $1 billion over 10 years, at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. SRS Critical Infrastructure Security, or SCIS, is composed of Securitas CIS, K2 Solutions, Spectra Tech, Inc. […]

As of Tuesday, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and the Department of Energy are still tinkering with a draft memorandum of understanding about sharing information at nuclear-weapon sites while a Donald Trump administration order limiting DOE interactions with the board remains in effect. That’s according to a spokesperson for the independent federal board, which […]

President Joe Biden plans to nominate David Turk as the deputy secretary of energy, according to a White House news release published this week. Turk, a member of Biden’s Department of Energy transition team, is currently deputy executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), where he has worked since 2016 after leaving the Barack […]

The Department of Energy under the Joe Biden administration has decided, for now at least, to undo an organizational change made by the prior administration which had the Office of Environmental Management stovepiped below DOE’s undersecretary for science. The new organizational chart has the Office of Environmental Management (EM) reporting directly to the office of […]

The Energy Communities Alliance and local groups around the Hanford Site in Washington state claim a change in contracting policy by the Department of Energy could cripple some local subcontractors. In essence, the critics say DOE is ending many existing professional and support subcontracts at Hanford and encouraging the site’s new support services and central […]

The Department of Energy cleared a transition of Savannah River National Laboratory operations to Battelle Savannah River Alliance starting Feb. 16, the contractor announced Thursday. The notice means the Battelle team will take over as manager of the laboratory in mid-June from Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, which is the current operator of the entire […]

The Department of Energy Thursday issued its final solicitation for a potential $614-million small business set-aside contract for the Moab Remedial Action Contract which involves cleanup of a uranium tailings pile in Utah. The new business could run 15 years, with a 10-year ordering period plus an additional five-year task order, and would replace the […]

There were as of Thursday 296 active, confirmed cases of COVID-19 among personnel in the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, which is 39 fewer than the previous week’s total of 335. The figure, provided Thursday by an Environmental Management (EM) office spokesperson, marks several weeks of mostly steady decreases in the active cases […]

Jacobs Engineering, the Dallas-based parent of multiple nuclear-cleanup and nuclear-weapon site contractors, saw profits rise about $20 million in the first quarter of 2021, while revenue stayed flat, the company reported this week.  That accounts for adjustments related to the 2019 sale of the company’s Energy, Chemicals and Resources division to Australia’s Worley, and other […]

New Mexico will hold hearings soon about restarting excavation of a new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, the Department of Energy’s manager for the transuranic waste disposal site told state lawmakers in a virtual briefing Tuesday. In addition, the facility should emplace more shipments of transuranic waste in the next […]

The Department of Energy expects to treat the remainder of transuranic waste, held in interim storage at Idaho National Laboratory by the end of year, a DOE official in Idaho said recently.  Of the 65,000 cubic meters of material shipped to Idaho from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado between 1970 and […]

The DOE Office of Environmental Management released a new organizational chart on Monday, on which William (Ike) White is labelled as acting assistant secretary for environmental management.  As recently as Jan. 20, White was still listed as a senior adviser for DOE environmental management (EM). The retooled org tree also lists John Jones as acting […]

After disposing of only 192 shipments of transuranic waste during 2020, the Department of Energy expects the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will receive many more over the next 12 months as the COVID-19 pandemic gradually subsides. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could receive up to 325 shipments of transuranic waste for disposal between Feb. […]

A group dedicated to supporting communities around the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is still seeking a new executive director, which would be its third in three years,  and is planning to discuss the issue Friday. The Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) board of directors will discuss a request […]

The end is within sight for the Department of Energy’s effort to treat 65,000 cubic yards of transuranic waste, held in interim storage at Idaho National Laboratory, to the Waste isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Of the material shipped to Idaho from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado between 1970 and […]

New Mexico will hold hearings in the coming weeks about restarting excavation of a new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, the Department of Energy’s manager for the transuranic waste disposal site told state lawmakers in a virtual briefing Tuesday. Reinhard Knerr, the DOE’s manager of the Carlsbad Field Office that […]

Managers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state received confirmation of six positive COVID-19 tests among its workers over the weekend. There were two positive cases reported at Hanford Friday evening and four more on Sunday, according to advisories, posted on a DOE operations website for Hanford run by a contractor. There […]

The New Mexico Court of Appeals has been briefed on a lawsuit brought by citizen groups challenging modifications made in December 2018 by the Department of Energy to the method used to calculate waste volumes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, one of the parties said by email Sunday. The case is now […]

The Department of Energy’s plans to kick off a public comment period next month on options for removing seven aging structures within the 200 West Area of the Hanford Site in Washington state. In a Monday announcement, DOE said these are “Tier 2” structures, meaning the facilities are chemically or radiologically contaminated due to Hanford’s […]

A standard box of transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, stuck at a commercial site in Texas since 2014, has been approved for shipment to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. When that waste box is shipped there will be 74 remaining at Waste Control Specialists, Brian McGovern, […]

The New Mexico Environment Department expects the Department of Energy will start work this spring cleaning up contaminated land along DP Road, just outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a state spokeswoman said this week.  The DOE and legacy cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos submitted the preliminary screening plan on Dec. 21 to […]