Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The New Mexico Senate on Monday unanimously confirmed former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency manager James Kenney as secretary of the state Environment Department. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) named Kenney as secretary-designate to NMED on Jan. 7. Along with enforcing environmental laws, the department oversees hazardous waste and radioactive sources at U.S. Department […]

As part of its efforts to put its house in order, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) intends hire a high-profile staff management position, Chairman Bruce Hamilton said Thursday during a meeting in Washington, D.C. “We need to hire this executive secretary, or chief of staff, or whatever you want to call it,” Hamilton […]

U.S. Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) last week again introduced legislation to reauthorize the Department of Energy’s West Valley Demonstration Project in New York. The measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), was filed Feb. 11 and assigned to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. As of this morning, the text has not been received for […]

A lawsuit filed by local landowners claims negligence by Boeing and Southern California Edison is partly to blame for a wildfire that charred almost 100,000 acres of land in Los Angeles and Ventura counties in California. The complaint against the airplane manufacturer and the electric power company was filed Feb. 5 in California Superior Court […]

The U.S. Justice Department and the contractor that manages the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina hope a civilian board will soon offer an opinion on whether the company overcharged the federal government by $5 million. Before a decision can be made, the two sides must wrap up a weeks-long hearing in […]

Updated safety documents for a ventilation tunnel at the Savannah River Site’s H Canyon facility are expected to be approved this summer and implemented in the fall, according to the Department of Energy. The documents should reflect a different approach to how the 310-square-mile site will handle incidents at the facility during an earthquake or […]

Department of Energy contractor Parsons recently completed construction of a $13 million facility that will expedite treatment of liquid salt waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Parsons announced Monday it has finished building the Next Generation Solvent (NGS) facility and has it in operational standby, awaiting startup of the site’s Salt Waste […]

The manager of the Department of Energy Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site, Brian Vance, has been selected as acting manager of the Hanford Richland Operations Office. This is the first time since the Office of River Protection (ORP) was established in 1998 that there has been one top manager for the entire […]

The U.S. Department of Justice on Feb. 8 filed a civil lawsuit against Hanford Site contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA), accusing it of fraud through false claims and kickbacks from 2010 to 2015. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington also names Lockheed Martin Services Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Lockheed executive […]

AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation (SRR) hired 378 new workers in 2018, and expects to bring on a similar number of employees this year under its liquid waste management contract at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. Energy Department cleanup sites such as Savannah River have been pushing hiring programs in recent years […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office sent a valentine to prospective contractors Thursday, issuing two major requests for proposals at the Hanford Site in Washington state. In releasing final procurement notices for the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract and the Tank Closure Contract, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) met a 45-day deadline it set […]

The need to develop and win regulatory approval for new “oversized boxes” to move radioactive waste to the Idaho National Laboratory was central to the Energy Department’s decision against keeping the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) open past this year. After considering sustaining operations at the facility open after it finishes its mission to […]

The Hanford Site’s occupational medicine contractor has been awarded 90.1 percent of the fee available for the last full fiscal year under its expiring contract. HPM Corp. (HPMC), of Kennewick, Wash., earned $315,350 of $350,000 available for fiscal 2018, according to a Department of Energy performance scorecard released Wednesday. HPM Corp. was awarded a six-year […]

The Department of Energy needs to be more realistic in tracking and reporting progress toward environmental milestones at its nuclear cleanup sites, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Thursday. “We found that DOE didn’t accurately track or report whether milestones were met, missed, or postponed. We also found that sites continually renegotiate milestones they are […]

ARLINGTON, Va. — The head of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) hazarded an educated guess here Wednesday that the Department of Energy will soon extend his team’s contract to manage the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. After a one-year, $1-billion extension awarded in 2018 by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, SRNS is slated to […]

The state of New York plans to accept public input later this year on a draft permit for the U.S. Department of Energy to keep transuranic waste up to 10 years at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup site in Schenectady County. After the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) last year decided the […]

A motorist who died in an automobile crash inside the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Feb. 7 was not an employee of the Department of Energy or its contractors. “It wasn’t connected to our work,” a DOE spokesperson said by email. “It does appear that it was just a tragic accident — one […]

Fewer workers than Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth (FBP) hoped took advantage of a voluntary separation package offered for contractor personnel at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. After offering the package in December for up to 75 employees at the former gaseous diffusion plant, the decommissioning vendor said this week less than two-thirds of that number […]

The Energy Department and its contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) are seeking to preserve their recently won change to the way in which transuranic waste volume is recorded at the New Mexico disposal facility. Both DOE and AECOM-led Nuclear Waste Partnership have been authorized to intervene in the legal challenge brought last […]

The state of New York plans to accept public input later this year on a draft permit for the U.S. Department of Energy to keep transuranic waste up to 10 years at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup site in Schenectady County. After the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) last year decided the […]

The Energy Department and its contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) are seeking to preserve their recently won change to the way in which transuranic waste volume is recorded at the New Mexico disposal facility. Both DOE and AECOM-led Nuclear Waste Partnership have been authorized to intervene in the legal challenge brought last […]

The manager of the Department of Energy Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site, Brian Vance, has been selected as acting manager of the Hanford Richland Operations Office. This is the first time since the Office of River Protection (ORP) was established in 1998 that there has been one top manager for the entire […]

A lawsuit filed by local landowners claims negligence by Boeing and Southern California Edison is partly to blame for a wildfire that charred almost 100,000 acres of land in Los Angeles and Ventura counties in California. The complaint against the airplane manufacturer and the electric power company was filed Feb. 5 in California Superior Court […]

Fewer workers than Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth (FBP) hoped took advantage of a voluntary separation package offered for contractor personnel at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. After offering the package in December for up to 75 employees at the former gaseous diffusion plant, the decommissioning vendor said this week less than two-thirds of that number […]

A motorist who died in an automobile crash inside the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Thursday was not an employee of the Department of Energy or its contractors. “It wasn’t connected to our work,” a DOE spokesperson said by email. “It does appear that it was just a tragic accident — one of […]

The Wednesday meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board in Richland, Wash., has been canceled due to bad weather. Heavy snowfall across Washington state and a forecast for freezing rain prompted the cancellation. The meeting had already been reduced to a single day administrative session because the partial shutdown of the federal government in January prevented […]

AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation hired 378 new workers in 2018, and expects to bring on a similar number of employees this year under its liquid waste contract at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Energy Department cleanup sites such as Savannah River have been pushing hiring programs in recent years to offset […]

Five sessions on federal environmental cleanup contracting have been scheduled for the 45th Waste Management Symposia from March 3 through 7 in Phoenix. Business sessions on the agenda are: A Monday, March 4, session on small business contracting to provide an overview of programs within the Department of Energy’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business […]

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday filed a civil lawsuit against Hanford Site contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA), accusing it of fraud through false claims and kickbacks from 2010 to 2015. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington also names Lockheed Martin Services Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Lockheed executive Jorge […]

The need to develop and win regulatory approval for new “oversized boxes” to move radioactive waste to the Idaho National Laboratory was central to the Energy Department’s decision against keeping the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) open past this year. After considering sustaining operations at the facility open after it finishes its mission to process […]