Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The Energy Department continues to work on selecting a winning vendor to characterize, deactivate, and tear down some low-risk structures for the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management in Tennessee. In August 2018, the Energy Department issued a request for proposals for a small business set-aside contract, potentially worth almost $25 million over five years, […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry will testify before the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee next week on his agency’s fiscal 2020 budget request. Perry is the only witness scheduled to appear before the panel at 10 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday at Rayburn House Office Building Room 2362-B in Washington, D.C. The subcommittee is led […]

The fiscal 2020 budget proposal for the Department of Energy shows another $15 million for the nearly completed cleanup of the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) in upstate New York. The budget request is roughly equal to the amount SPRU received in fiscal 2019 and triple the $5 million it was allotted in fiscal 2018. […]

Anyone visiting the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico these days should not count on finding a cheap hotel room around Carlsbad, N.M. Rooms are scarce and midweek rates can run from $148 per night at the Super 8, to $289 at the Days Inn, to $409 at the La Quinta […]

The Department of Energy indicated Monday it intends in the upcoming budget year to cut tens of millions of dollars from environmental remediation funding at some of its national laboratories. As part of the continuing rollout of the Trump administration budget plan for fiscal 2020, the Energy Department released preliminary funding tables for its laboratories. […]

Idaho state regulators are reviewing documents drafted by Fluor Idaho, which the company hopes will allow resumption of sludge repackaging this spring at the Idaho National Laboratory facility where four waste drums overheated and ejected their lids last April. The “corrective action plan” and “evaluation of the safety of the situation” reports are being discussed […]

Prospective vendors looking at a potential seven-year, $900 million contract to manage the 222-S Laboratory Contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state have filed 70 questions on the solicitation. The final request for proposals was issued Feb. 7. Bid proposals are due by 4 p.m. ET April 9, and the anticipated award date is […]

The H-Canyon processing facilities at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina currently generate roughly 100,000 gallons per year of radioactive liquid waste, a figure expected to grow to about 200,000 per year in fiscal 2022. After fiscal 2022, the amount of liquid waste going from H-Canyon into the SRS liquid waste […]

The Department of Energy is proposing a $417 million cut to funding for environmental remediation at the Hanford Site in Washington state, while boosting spending for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by $91 million. On March 11, the agency rolled out the broad outlines of its fiscal 2020 budget […]

For the second year in a row, the House of Representatives has approved legislation to reauthorize the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York. The bill, introduced by Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and passed by voice vote March 5, is identical to the measure passed in September before Democrats retook control of the House The […]

The Department of Energy will keep the current liquid waste management vendor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on the job for an additional 18 months, a move that comes about two weeks after it canceled plans for a new decade-long contract. In a post on a federal procurement website, DOE said Monday […]

Columbia, S.C.-based Energy Department subcontractor AVANTech recently hired Mark Ping as its senior vice president of business development for utility services. Ping’s nuclear career spans more than 35 years and includes experience in radioactive water treatment, wet waste processing, and disposal, the company said in a Feb. 19 press release. The company is a provider […]

The Department of Energy does not know yet what action it will take on its proposed reinterpretation of the definition of high-level radioactive waste (HLW), Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White said last week. “We don’t have a real distinct schedule on that. Again, we are trying to take our time and be deliberative,” […]

The Donald Trump administration has proposed a $6.5 billion budget for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management in fiscal 2020, slightly less than the $6.6 billion requested last year but 11 percent below the $7.2 billion eventually enacted by Congress. The office’s funding for the budget year that began Oct. 1 is its largest […]

The Energy Department and its contractors expect demolition of the X-326 Process Building at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to begin in July 2020, federal managers said March 7 at the Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Ariz. Most deactivation work has been completed at the building built in the 1950s to enrich uranium, first for […]

Prospective contractors have peppered the Energy Department with questions about two requests for proposals issued in February for the Hanford Site in Washington state. The DOE Office of Environmental Management recently posted 75 questions raised by the contractor community about the potential 10-year, $13 billion Tank Closure Contract. The cleanup office posted another 28 questions […]

Operations resumed Thursday at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico after more than a day of high winds that knocked out power and stranded some workers in an elevator for about three hours. The Carlsbad Current-Argus reported Wednesday that 36 miners were stuck in an elevator from roughly 7 p.m. to […]

The Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO) is talking with officials in Washington state about long-term plans for resuming shipments of transuranic waste from the Hanford Site to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. It has been eight years since DOE sent waste from the former plutonium production complex to the underground […]

Local community leaders are urging the Washington state Department of Ecology to expedite completing an environmental impact statement (EIS) and a revised permit for Perma-Fix Northwest in Richland, Wash., near the Hanford Site. The Department of Ecology said at a public meeting Wednesday in Richland on the scope of the EIS that the permit application […]

The Department of Energy pushed back against a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendation that local agency field offices investigate the ownership of subcontractors on nuclear sites for potential conflicts of interest. Local DOE officials should “independently review subcontractor ownership information as part of DOE consent reviews and assess potential conflicts of interest to ensure […]

The Energy Department and its contractors expect demolition of the X-326 Process Building at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to begin in July 2020, federal managers said March 7 at the Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Ariz. Most deactivation work has been completed at the building built in the 1950s to enrich uranium, first for […]

Las Vegas-based Energy Department subcontractor Longenecker & Associates this week hired a former regulator with the Washington state Department of Ecology. The newly-hired associate, Ron Skinnarland, will work out of Richland, Wash., and report to Longenecker Senior Vice President for Operations Christine Gelles. He joins the company’s regulatory team, which assists with compliance issues on […]

Operations were expected to resume today at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico after more than a day of high winds that knocked out power and stranded some workers in an elevator for about three hours. The Carlsbad Current-Argus reported Wednesday 36 miners were stuck in an elevator from roughly 7 […]

The Energy Department will keep the current waste management vendor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on the job for an additional 18 months, a move that comes about two weeks after it canceled plans for a new decade-long contract. In a post on a federal procurement website, DOE said Monday it plans […]

Prospective contractors have peppered the Energy Department with questions about two requests for proposals issued in February for the Hanford Site in Washington state. The DOE Office of Environmental Management recently posted 75 questions raised by the contractor community about the potential 10-year, $13 billion Tank Closure Contract. The cleanup office posted another 28 questions […]

The Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO) is talking with officials in Washington state about long-term plans for resuming shipments of transuranic waste from the Hanford Site to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. It has been eight years since DOE sent waste from the former plutonium production complex to the underground disposal […]

The Donald Trump administration has proposed a $6.5 billion budget for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management in fiscal 2020, slightly less than the $6.6 billion requested last year but 11 percent below the $7.2 billion eventually enacted by Congress. In a top-line budget plan issued Monday, senior DOE officials said the request fulfills […]

Columbia, S.C.-based Energy Department subcontractor AVANTech recently hired Mark Ping as its senior vice president of business development for utility services. Ping’s nuclear career spans more than 35 years and includes experience in radioactive water treatment, wet waste processing, and disposal, the company said in a Feb. 19 press release. The company is a provider […]

For the second year in a row, the House of Representatives has approved legislation to reauthorize the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York. The bill, introduced by Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and passed by voice vote March 5, is identical to the measure passed in September before Democrats retook control of the House The […]

The U.S. Department of Justice has detailed its complaints about a new Washington state law that makes it easier for Hanford Site personnel to have their workers’ compensation claims approved. The Justice Department filed a motion for summary judgment late on March 1 in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington state, asking that the court […]