Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday denied a protest of the Energy Department’s award of a multibillion-dollar contract for remediation of the Central Plateau at the Hanford Site in Washington state to a group led by Amentum. The Project W Restoration partnership, comprised of Bechtel National, Tetra Tech, and EnergySolutions, filed a protest Jan. […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Thursday confirmed two more cases of COVID-19, bringing its total to 13 of the 20 known instances of infection among personnel working at sites overseen by the agency’s Office of Environmental Management. A spokesperson for the DOE office at Savannah River declined to provide any […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily halted most physical work on major waste projects scheduled to come online this year at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory and Savannah River Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Reductions in on-site staffing triggered by DOE efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus have suspended virtually all physical […]

Vice presidents at Department of Energy contractor Bechtel are taking pay cuts of up to 25% over 90 days during the COVID-19 crisis The one-quarter reduction applies to senior vice presidents, while principal vice presidents at the Reston, Va.-based company are receiving a 10% reduction, management told employees on April 6. The measure is a […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Tuesday confirmed its 11th cases of COVID-19. A spokesperson for the DOE office at Savannah River declined to provide any additional details on the individual. To date, nine of the 11 people who have tested positive at the DOE complex near the South Carolina-Georgia border […]

While it has made progress, the Department of Energy still needs to more fully address priority recommendations to improve performance in its nuclear security and cleanup missions, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Wednesday. In an annual update, the congressional auditor said it has 20 priority recommendations across the Energy Department, including eight recommendations new […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management intends to issue a sole-source business deal to a firm to provide employee training on end-state contracting. In a Monday procurement notice, the agency announced plans to hire Management Concepts Inc. (MCI) to provide the training as the nuclear cleanup office continues to overhaul its management of environmental […]

The Energy Department has exercised a one-year option to keep Spectra Tech on the job overseeing spent fuel facilities at the Idaho National Laboratory through March 2021. In February, DOE picked up its last option for the current contract, according to procurement documents. The Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based engineering and environmental services firm began work on […]

A New Mexico advocacy organization is asking the state Court of Appeals to block last week’s temporary state approval for the U.S. Department of Energy to sink a new underground shaft at the Waste isolation Pilot Plant. The Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) filed its motion with the court Friday. That same day, the […]

Mission Support Alliance is shopping around for a subcontractor to build a new water treatment facility at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Hanford support services contractor said in an April 25 procurement notice it is accepting expressions of interest from vendors to build a new 10,000-square-foot microfiltration membrane water treatment plant. […]

Reductions in on-site staffing at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic have temporarily halted virtually all physical work on the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, a state official said Monday. Progress on the IWTU is on hold “as much of the work requires materials/contractors from outside Idaho and some confined space […]

An employee of the technical services vendor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico has contracted COVID-19. This marks the facility’s first confirmed infection of novel coronavirus 2019. The employee of North Wind Portage tested positive Friday after working remotely since March 18, according to a news release from DOE’s […]

Reduced staffing caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Department of Energy to suspend construction of the Saltstone Disposal Unit 7 (SDU 7) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said in a recent report. The April 3 staff report filed with DNFSB Technical Director Christopher Roscetti […]

Two Fluor vice presidents are leaving the company, and all executives are temporarily taking a 20% cut in their base pay, according to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the April 10 notice, Fluor announced the separation from employment of Executive Vice President for Systems and Supply Chain Ray Barnard and […]

The Ohio Department of Health said in federal court documents it cannot provide the cancer records sought by local residents suing current and former contractors at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Pike County. U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers, in the Southern District of Ohio, gave the plaintiffs until Friday to file a motion […]

The Energy Department has yet to execute an extension of up to two years for the Amentum-led joint venture responsible for remediation at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The agency in February announced its intention to award a sole-source deal to URS/CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) in the form of a one-year extension, plus options […]

The Department of Energy expects within 60 days to issue a final request for proposals for a small business to provide technical assistance to the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced its plans Thursday on a federal procurement website. Idaho-based North Wind Group is the incumbent, with a […]

The Energy Department office that oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., is in the market for a satellite location about four hours north in the city of Albuquerque. “Due to the low availability of housing and high cost of living in Carlsbad, New Mexico, multiple offices in the Carlsbad Field Office are short […]

The Energy Department officially plans to end the policy of bartering uranium to pay for legacy nuclear-weapon cleanup at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The policy statement is included in a report issued Thursday that lays out a plan for restarting end-to-end nuclear fuel production in the United States. The agency will will “cease bartering […]

The Energy Department assured the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) on April 16 it would oversee remediation of recently discovered radioactive waste on former federal land near the site of a planned housing complex in Los Alamos County. Top brass for the Office of Environmental Management and the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration at the […]

Federal agencies will gradually return to normal operations in parallel with the White House’s three-phase plan to reactivate the national economy as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, the Trump administration said Monday. The new guidance does not provide any set schedule for the process, but rather says managers must make decisions on reducing telework and staffing […]

The Government Accountability Office this week rejected a protest against the new long-term Energy Department contract for support services at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The potential 10-year, $4 billion contract was awarded in December to Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, comprised of Leidos, Centerra, and Parsons. A Huntington Ingalls Industries-led team that also bid […]

Limited operations will remain in place for at least another week at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Manager Brian Vance announced Wednesday. The announcement came four days after the second confirmed case of viral infection at the nuclear cleanup site, an employee of support services provider […]

Two Fluor vice presidents are leaving the company, and all executives are temporarily taking a 20% cut in their base pay, according to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the April 10 notice, Fluor announced the separation from employment of Executive Vice President for Systems and Supply Chain Ray Barnard and […]

An employee of the Energy Department’s support services contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington has the second confirmed case of COVID-19 at the former plutonium production complex. In a weekend memo to employees of Mission Support Alliance, President Bob Wilkinson and Chief Operating Officer Amy Basche said they recently learned “a member of the […]

The Government Accountability Office on Thursday rejected a protest against the new long-term Energy Department contract for support services at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The potential 10-year, $4 billion contract was awarded in December to Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, comprised of Leidos, Centerra, and Parsons. A Huntington Ingalls Industries-led team that also bid […]

The Ohio Department of Health said in federal court documents it cannot provide the cancer records sought by local residents suing current and former contractors at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Pike County. U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers, in the Southern District of Ohio, gave the plaintiffs until Friday to file a motion […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management confirmed Tuesday that contracts for nuclear cleanup sites are being modified to include paid leave for certain workers who cannot telecommute during the COVID-19 pandemic. Environmental Management “is in the process of modifying applicable prime contracts to incorporate a contract clause to implement Section 3610 of the CARES […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., emplaced 40 shipments of transuranic waste during the first three months of 2020, according to data from its public website. That is down significantly from 59 shipments in the first three months of 2019. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant completed a three-week maintenance outage […]

Federal agencies will gradually return to normal operations in parallel with the White House’s three-phase plan to reactivate the national economy as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, the Trump administration said Monday. The guidance does not provide any set schedule for the process, but rather says agency heads must make decisions on reducing telework and fully […]