Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The Energy Department confirmed Monday it has formally extended Savannah River Remediation’s (SRR) contract to manage liquid waste operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina through Sept. 30, 2020. The agreement was signed March 29. The extension is valued at roughly $750 million, SRR lead partner AECOM said in a Tuesday news release. […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is altering provisions of its request for proposals (RFP) for security at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina in response to questions from potential bidders. The tweaks involve decreasing small business subcontracting requirements for the winning vendor from 30% to 10%, as well as making it clear […]

The Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) has extended the contracts for three technical support services providers, potentially through the end of the year, an agency spokesperson confirmed Monday. In a notice released in January, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management indicated it could push back the expiration of the contracts held by the three […]

The Department of Energy could take steps to reduce the cost, shorten the schedule, and increase the efficiency of environmental remediation at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to the agency’s top nuclear cleanup official. Anne White made her fifth trip to Hanford last week on the first anniversary of her March 29, 2018, […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM) expects to speed cleanup of its nuclear sites by decades and save “$100s of millions” in life-cycle costs, according to the Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2020 budget request. The request, issued in March, would trim the DOE nuclear remediation appropriation from $7.2 billion in fiscal 2019 to […]

Perma-Fix Environmental Services said Monday it is progressing toward renewal of its Washington state Dangerous Waste Regulations permit for its low-level and mixed-low-level radioactive waste processing facility in the city of Richland. The permit for the Perma-Fix Northwest plant, near the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, expired in 2010 and has yet to be renewed. […]

Centrus Energy should wrap up $15 million worth of decontamination and decommissioning at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee by Sept. 30, according to a financial filing Monday. Last September, DOE issued the contract to the Maryland-based company to prepare the K-1600 building for demolition. Centrus leased the K-1600 building to further test […]

After its first effort fell short of its goal, Department of Energy cleanup contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth is reviving its voluntary separation program in hopes of finding 29 more workers ready to take early departure. The decontamination and decommissioning contractor for the Portsmouth Site in Ohio in December first issued its offer in hopes of persuading […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggested Tuesday he is ready to again suspend his agency’s past practice of bartering excess government uranium to help pay for environmental remediation at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. “I agree with you,” Perry told Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a vocal opponent of the practice, during a Senate Energy and Natural […]

The Energy Department and the state of Idaho have yet to discuss potential shipments of transuranic waste from the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) in New York state to the Idaho National Laboratory during fiscal 2020 and 2021. The fiscal 2020 budget justification for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management envisions sending 24 containers filled with […]

The Department of Energy on Monday issued preliminary notices of violation to CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. over repeated incidents of radiological contamination spread at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Radioactive particles were found outside the established radiological control boundary of the Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition site in 2017 and 2018. The Energy Department […]

The Energy Department and the state of Idaho have yet to discuss potential shipments of transuranic waste from the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) in New York state to the Idaho National Laboratory during fiscal 2020 and 2021. The budget justification for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management envisions sending defense transuranic waste from the New […]

Centrus Energy should wrap up $15 million worth of decontamination and decommissioning at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee by Sept. 30, according to a financial filing Monday. Last September, DOE issued the contract to the Maryland-based company to prepare the K-1600 building for demolition. Centrus leased space in K-1600 to further test […]

A New Mexico lawmaker questioned Tuesday why the Energy Department plans to issue a $115 million sole-source contract for Centrus Energy to build new uranium enrichment equipment at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) posed the question to Energy Secretary Rick Perry during a hearing DOE’s budget request for fiscal 2020. Heinrich […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggested Tuesday he is ready to again suspend his agency’s past practice of bartering excess government uranium to help pay for environmental remediation at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. “I agree with you,” Perry told Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a vocal opponent of the practice, during a Senate Energy and Natural […]

After its first effort fell short of its goal, Department of Energy cleanup contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth is reviving its voluntary separation program in hopes of finding 29 more workers ready to take early departure. The decontamination and decommissioning contractor for the Portsmouth Site in Ohio in December first issued its offer in hopes of persuading […]

The Energy Department confirmed Monday it has formally extended Savannah River Remediation’s contract to manage liquid waste operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina through Sept. 30, 2020. The agreement was signed Friday. The extension is valued at roughly $750 million, AECOM said in a Tuesday news release. AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation began […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management expects to speed Cold War cleanup by decades and save “$100s of millions” in life-cycle costs, according to the Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2020 budget request. The request, issued in March, would trim the DOE nuclear remediation appropriation, from $7.2 billion in fiscal 2019 to $6.5 billion in […]

The Idaho National Laboratory could receive transuranic waste from the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) in New York state in fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021, according to the recent Department of Energy budget justification. The Idaho National Laboratory, which is trying to get rid of a backlog of on-site defense transuranic waste, would serve as […]

The $6.5 billion fiscal 2020 budget request for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would resume the practice of “bartering” excess government uranium in order to defray cleanup costs at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, helped win […]

The Savannah River Site would receive nearly $798 million for liquid tank waste treatment under the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2020 budget request – an uptick of more than $100 million from the current federal budget year. Most other missions under the South Carolina facility’s Environmental Management (EM) program would also get a boost if […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has given its blessing for Waste Control Specialists (WCS) to continue storing transuranic waste from the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory through late December 2020. The commission on March 20 issued an amendment to Waste Control Specialists’ state radioactive materials license allowing it to retain the potentially […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) says the Energy Department should do more to reduce the risk of combustion of stored radioactive waste sludge similar to the April 2018 accident at the Idaho National Laboratory in which four drums blew off their lids. In a March 12 letter, the DNFSB asked Energy Secretary Rick […]

The Department of Energy could levy up to $33 million in disincentive fees against Parsons Government Services for the contractor’s failure to control costs and meet deadlines at the Savannah River Site’s $2.3 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), the agency said this month. Parsons is pushing back, saying the agency is not acting in […]

The state of Washington on March 22 asked a federal judge to rule in its favor without going to trial in the Hanford Site workers’ compensation lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice in December. The Justice Department sued the state in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, saying a new state law that increases […]

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has rejected a petition to rehear a case asking that full pension benefits be reinstated for up to 500 people who worked at the Hanford Site in Washington state. It issued the denial Tuesday without comment. Retirees of Lockheed Martin Services Inc. in February petitioned […]

Funding for a key environmental remediation infrastructure project at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee would be sliced by $27 million in the Department of Energy’s budget plan for fiscal 2020. The DOE Office of Environmental Management request at Oak Ridge would decrease by $217 million from the fiscal 2019 level, from $646 million to […]

The Department of Energy plans in fiscal 2020 to cut funding for cleanup at the Hanford Site in Washington state in part because of progress made and projects completed, according to detailed budget documents released Monday. In total, funding for the two DOE offices at Hanford would drop by more than $400 million from current […]

Centrus Energy on Thursday reported a decline in revenue for both the fourth quarter of 2018 and the year in whole. The Bethesda, Md.-based nuclear fuel provider reported revenue of about $84 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, and $193 million for 2018, down respectively from $117 million and $218 million for the corresponding […]

A senior U.S. Army official on Wednesday struggled to explain the reasoning for the Trump administration’s plan to return management of a nuclear cleanup program from the Army Corps of Engineers to the Department of Energy. “I really think that DOE wanted that program back, and I can’t answer why on that,” R.D. James, assistant […]