Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The management prime at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has resumed downblending plutonium at the K Area after operations were suspended in 2019. Workers for site manager Savannah River Nuclear Solutions started downblending plutonium in the K Area in 2017, but the operations were paused last year for an extensive maintenance […]

A recent audit by the Energy Department’s Office of Inspector General found that a major vendor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, Mission Support Alliance (MSA), is not meeting its agreed-upon small business contracting commitments. The Leidos-led vendor, which provides landlord services at the former plutonium production complex that range from road maintenance to […]

The House of Representatives is scheduled this week to debate its $49.6 billion energy and water appropriations legislation as part of a larger seven-bill spending “minibus” for fiscal 2021. The House’s posted floor schedule for the week does not provide the specific schedule for debate on H.R. 7617, the Defense, CJS, Energy and Water, Financial […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina disclosed late Friday that it now has recorded 183 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among its workforce, up by 52 from July 17. In the first update in a week on novel coronavirus 2019, the SRS website said 102 of the federal and contractor employees have […]

The number of active cases of COVID-19 among Energy Department nuclear cleanup personnel rose substantially this week, and some industry sources suspect this is slowing a return to normal operations at former Cold War and Manhattan Project sites. There were 94 active cases as of Thursday within the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) complex, […]

Michael Steuert has ended his second term as chief financial officer for Fluor, and was succeeded Wednesday by longtime company executive Joe Brennan. The financially troubled Irving, Texas-based engineering and construction multinational announced the change on Friday. Steuert joined Fluor as CFO and senior vice president in 2001 and retired in 2012. He returned as […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management plans to beef up its procurement staff to evaluate contract proposals. The nuclear cleanup office said in a July 16 press release it is launching an “acquisition corps” to increase its talent pool of procurement specialists at field sites and the Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC). […]

The White House on Tuesday nominated a former staff member at the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board (DNFSB) to become a member of the panel. Matthew Moury has since June 2017 served as Energy Department associate undersecretary for environment, health, safety, and security. His nomination to the DNFSB will be considered first by the Senate […]

The Energy Department said this week that demolition of 10 buildings is underway at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, Calif. Teardown of a guard station marks the start of demolition of 10 deteriorating buildings at the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility (RMHF) complex agreed to in May by DOE and the state of […]

The Energy Department has agreed to a contract extension lasting as long as two years for the incumbent remediation vendor at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced Monday it will exercise a one-year extension to keep URS/CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) on the job thorough July 2021. That would […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted 86-14 to pass its $740.5-billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2021, which now faces a conference committee to iron out differences between it and the House version of the defense policy bill passed earlier this week. The NDAA crafted by the Senate Armed Services Committee would put a […]

In a revised order, the Department of Energy has relaxed the firewall it attempted to erect between personnel at nuclear-weapon sites and the federal agency responsible for sniffing out potential threats to public safety from those operations. The Energy Department shared a draft of the revised Order 140.1 with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) in […]

The congressman representing the district surrounding the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state is facing off with five challengers in an Aug. 4 primary for which voting by mail has already started. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) has represented the 4th Congressional District in central Washington since January 2015. As a member of House Appropriations […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries said Tuesday its operations for the Department of Energy would not be affected by the newly announced merging of two business groups. The corporate parent of Newport News Shipbuilding is combining two business lines within its Technical Solutions division: The previous Fleet Support and Mission Driven Innovative Solutions (MDIS) groups are becoming […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management plans to beef up its procurement staff to evaluate contract proposals. The nuclear cleanup office said in a July 16 press release it is launching an “acquisition corps” to increase its talent pool of procurement specialists at field sites and the Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC). […]

Another worker at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has tested positive for infection by novel coronavirus 2019, contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said Tuesday. The site management prime confirmed the new case in a social media post on both Facebook and Twitter. The individual became ill July 11 and was subsequently […]

The Energy Department said this week that demolition of 10 buildings is underway at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, Calif. Teardown of a guard station marks the start of demolition of 10 deteriorating buildings at the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility (RMHF) complex agreed to in May by DOE and the state of […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries said Tuesday its operations for the Department of Energy would not be affected by the newly announced merging of two business groups. The corporate parent of Newport News Shipbuilding is combining two business lines within its Technical Solutions division: The previous Fleet Support and Mission Driven Innovative Solutions (MDIS) groups are becoming […]

The Energy Department plans to extend a sole-source contract with Atkins for research on vitrification at the Waste Treatment Plant being built at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The DOE Office of River Protection at Hanford said in July 14 procurement notice it intends to keep using the SNC-Lavalin Group subsidiary for testing of […]

The congressman representing the district surrounding the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state is facing off with five challengers in an Aug. 4 primary for which voting by mail has already started. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) has represented the 4th Congressional District in central Washington since January 2015. As a member of House Appropriations […]

The Energy Department has agreed to a contract extension lasting as long as two years for the incumbent remediation vendor at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced Monday it will exercise a one-year extension to keep URS/CH2M Hill Oak Ridge (UCOR) on the job thorough July 2021. That […]

The Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state confirmed three additional novel coronavirus 2019 infections over the weekend, with the latest reported Sunday. The new cases were disclosed on DOE’s website for Hanford. They bring the total COVID-19 cases at the former plutonium production complex to 31, based on an informal count. The Hanford Site […]

A Texas congressman wants to grant the Energy Department authority to dispose of certain foreign-generated radioactive material at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. Rep. Pete Olson (R) is proposing an amendment to the House of Representatives’ fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to allow disposal of americium-241 in the WIPP […]

A small plane crashed Sunday afternoon at the base of Rattlesnake Mountain on property owned by the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. There were no injuries. The plane’s two occupants said they were flying to view the elk herd in the area, according to a Facebook post from the Benton County Sheriff’s Office. […]

The Energy Department is taking public comment through Aug. 14 on options for management of deteriorating structures at the B Plant complex at the Hanford Site in Washington state. B Plant is located in the 200 East Area of the 580-square-mile Hanford Site. From the 1940s until 1952, the complex was used for the chemical […]

Contractor Fluor-BWXT has promoted J.D. Dowell to become the new project director for remediation operations at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Dowell, who has worked in nuclear management jobs for the military, DOE, and industry, has been at Portsmouth since 2018 as Fluor-BWXT’s deputy site director. In the new role, he will lead […]

There are 66 cases of active coronavirus infection among personnel for nuclear cleanup operations overseen by the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management, an agency representative said Thursday. That is more than double the 31 active cases of COVID-19 disclosed a week ago for the Environmental Management complex. The agency did not offer any theory […]

The Energy Department this week rejected a suggestion by the New Mexico Environment Department that it is being slow to take action on radioactive contamination discovered earlier this year on a public road outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Managers of Los Alamos field branches of both the DOE Office of Environmental Management and the […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Monday threw its support behind the Trump administration’s new plan to develop interim storage of radioactive waste now held at commercial and government facilities around the nation. In a 30-21 party-line vote, the Democrat-majority panel advanced its $49.6 billion energy and water bill for fiscal 2021 to the full House. […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday took its first step toward sealing a new long-term contract for operation of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The DOE Office of Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC) issued a sources sought notice/request for information (RFI) for vendors interested in running the underground disposal site for […]