Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a two-year, $2.7 trillion budget agreement on a 284-149 vote, a move that would allow the federal government to keep borrowing money. The new federal budget caps deal provides $2.5 billion more in base defense spending than the 2020 budget the House of Representatives has already approved. The […]

The Sheep Fire at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is contained enough to allow the emergency response to be scaled back, officials said Thursday afternoon. Firefighting crews will continue to keep an eye on the blaze there are no remaining hot spots, according to an update posted on the INL website. Fire officials expect […]

City officials from Oak Ridge, Tenn., want to meet with Energy Department representatives before the federal agency issues a draft record of decision in August for a new 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill planned for the Oak Ridge Site. City Manager Mark Watson made the request in a July 12 letter to Jay Mullis, manager of DOE’s […]

The Department of Energy is assessing potential vendor interest in processing, shipping, and disposing of radioactive waste from the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) in New York state. In a request for information (RFI)/sources sought notice Wednesday, the DOE Office of Environmental Management requested capability statements from interested parties with the expertise to do the […]

Jacobs subsidiary CH2M appears prepared to resume the higher-risk work involved in demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to an Energy Department report. “Overall, changes and improvements necessary for safely resuming higher risk demolition work have been effectively established and implemented,” the department’s Office of Enterprise […]

The Department of Energy is assessing potential vendor interest in processing, shipping, and disposing of radioactive waste from the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) in New York state. In a request for information (RFI)/sources sought notice Wednesday, the DOE Office of Environmental Management requested capability statements from interested parties with the expertise to do the […]

City officials from Oak Ridge, Tenn., want to meet with Energy Department representatives before the federal agency issues a draft record of decision in August for a new 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill planned for the Oak Ridge Site. City Manager Mark Watson made the request in a July 12 letter to Jay Mullis, manager of DOE’s […]

A wildfire that has burned 113,000 acres since Monday no longer poses a threat to the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory. The Sheep Fire, started by a lightning strike, was 60% contained as of Thursday morning. As a result, the Idaho National Laboratory expects to resume normal operations today, the Energy Department said in an […]

Jacobs subsidiary CH2M appears prepared to resume the higher-risk work involved in demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to an Energy Department report. “Overall, changes and improvements necessary for safely resuming higher risk demolition work have been effectively established and implemented,” the department’s Office of Enterprise […]

The Department of Energy on Monday issued a request for proposals for the Nevada Environmental Program Services contract, which could be worth up to $350 million over 10 years. Navarro Research and Engineering holds the current $80 million contract, which began in March 2015 and runs through January 2020. The RFP for the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) […]

Three industry sources said recently Fluor’s government services group, if not the entire company, could be an acquisition target for another player in the nuclear cleanup industry, Jacobs. Such a deal could further consolidate Jacobs’ hold on the business of environmental remediation for the U.S. Department of Energy, following its December 2017 purchase of CH2M. […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office on Friday posted its first new organizational chart since April 1, before the June departure of Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White. Following Anne White’s May resignation, reportedly due to strained relations with her boss, Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar, the Office of Environmental Management is […]

The U.S. Department of Energy and the Washington state Department of Ecology are taking public comments through Sept. 16 on a proposed change to the dangerous waste permit for the Hanford Site. If approved, the state permit modification would allow DOE to connect a backup waste transfer line from the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant’s […]

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said Thursday that negotiators from the White House, Senate, and House are close to “sealing a deal” to avoid triggering automatic spending cuts in fiscal 2020. “We hear that tremendous progress has been made and they have agreed basically in principle,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. However, […]

Staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined that the vast majority of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) low-level radioactive waste could be disposed of via a near-surface facility. This is another step, if a small one, toward the federal government potentially sending thousands of cubic meters of the waste to a disposal facility in West […]

Trial in in a longstanding discrimination case against the liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is set to begin Sept. 23, according to a notice released last week. Jury selection is slated for Aug. 5 in U.S. District Court for South Carolina. The legal team for Adrienne […]

A federal appeals court ruled this week Bechtel National is not due reimbursement from the U.S. government for $500,000 in legal fees the company incurred prior to settling discrimination litigation brought by two former employees at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. In an opinion issued Tuesday, a three-judge panel for the U.S. […]

A bill to reauthorize the Department of Energy’s West Valley Demonstration Project Act was reported out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a voice vote Tuesday. The measure was passed in a bloc of 20 bills considered at once by the panel, including committee Chair Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) Nuclear Energy Leadership Act. […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is concerned about the age and reliability of the electrical system in a historic building still used for interim storage of radioactive sludge at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The board, in a July 2 report submitted to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, suggested installation of […]

The Savannah River Site’s security contractor earned $96.1% of its possible award fee from the U.S. Department of Energy for services provided during the first half of fiscal 2019. Centerra-Savannah River Site brought in just shy of $3.14 million, out of a potential $3.26 million for the period from Oct. 1, 2018, to March 31, […]

The head of corporate services for the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), Paul Bosco, has returned to his old job at the agency. Bosco, EM associate principal deputy assistant secretary for corporate services for less than a year, has rejoined DOE’s Office of Project Management as director. The move apparently was in […]

Managers at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., plan more training to help ensure no mislabeled or improperly packaged shipments reach the underground disposal site for defense transuranic waste. Some training could be rolled out in the near future to minimize the chance of any shipments ending up at WIPP without […]

The U.S. Department of Energy wants negotiations to start soon with Washington state and the Environmental Protection Agency over updated plans for radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state. At the same time, the Energy Department said in a July 11 letter to Washington state Department of Ecology […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SNRS) will continue managing the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina for the next 14 months, and possibly another two years after that, according to an announcement Thursday. The $1.5 billion contract extension will keep SRNS on the job at least from Aug. 1 through Sept. 30, […]

AECOM on Monday named a senior executive with the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to lead the international arm of the company’s Management Services nuclear and strategic environment branch. David Batters will join AECOM on Sept. 1 as senior vice president and international sector lead for the Management Services nuclear and environment unit. The […]

Marian Davis has resigned as chief financial officer of uranium fuel broker and enrichment technology company Centrus Energy Corp., according to a regulatory filing. Davis submitted her letter of resignation June 7 and was expected to leave the company after it filed its 10-Q report on quarterly earnings for the period ended June 30, according […]

A federal appeals court ruled this week that Bechtel National is not due reimbursement from the U.S. government for $500,000 in legal fees the company incurred prior to settling discrimination litigation brought by two former employees at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. In an opinion issued Tuesday, a three-judge panel for the […]

The contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., is working on a five-year strategic plan that should be submitted to the agency and made public in August or September. Workshops on the contents of the plan will be held in Carlsbad and Santa Fe, N.M., sometime in those two […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is concerned about the age and reliability of the electrical system in a historic building still used for interim storage of radioactive sludge at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The board, in a July 2 report submitted to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, suggested installation of […]

Managers at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., plan more training to help ensure no mislabeled or improperly packaged shipments reach the underground disposal site for defense transuranic waste. Some training is being developed and could be rolled out in the near future to minimize the chance of any shipments ending […]