Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The contractor in charge of decommissioning and decontamination of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio earned $24.3 million out of a potential fee of almost $33 million for the 16-month period ended Sept. 30, 2017. The Energy Department’s recent release of the scorecard showing Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth earned 74 percent of its potential fee, […]

The Energy Department’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., should improve certain practices to ensure safe operation of its underground ventilation, according to a recent DOE report. Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) should also communicate more with union labor at the waste disposal facility, particularly when it comes to expectations […]

Energy Department contractor Fluor Idaho has found the fourth drum lid from an April 11 accident where four drums of radioactive sludge overheated and ejected their lids inside a building at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory. The lid was found by an airlock entry door near the floor within Room 106 of the WMF-1617 airlock at […]

CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation will have plenty of work to do over the next year after the Energy Department last month granted it a 12-month extension of its Central Plateau Cleanup contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. When it issued the draft request for proposals for the upcoming $6.5 billion Central Plateau contract […]

The Energy Department has clarified what it means by the “Notice to Proceed” in its Hanford Site Mission Essential Services Contract, and answered other questions posed by bidders for the business, which could be worth $6 billion over 10 years. After releasing the final request for proposals on Sept. 20 on the contract at the […]

The state of Washington has issued the permits needed for Bechtel National to complete construction of the final support facility at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant to allow treatment of low-activity radioactive waste by a federal court deadline of 2023. Construction of the plant has advanced significantly, with the concrete walls of the 18,400-square-foot […]

The federal government has lifted spending restrictions placed on Bechtel National purchasing after it addressed issues raised in a routine audit by the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency. In an Oct. 5 announcement, Bechtel said it received notification on Oct. 1 that its purchasing system had been reapproved for subcontracting activities, including at the Waste […]

A new legally binding deadline requires cesium and strontium capsules at the Hanford Site in Washington state to be moved to dry storage by August 2025, though some key stakeholders argued the work should done sooner. The Department of Energy and its regulators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington state Department of Ecology, […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday issued a request for information (RFI)/sources sought notice for the next stage in cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state. The DOE Office of Environmental Management is officially calling this “Phase 1B” of deactivating and tearing down buildings at West Valley, plus conducting soil remediation. […]

PacTec, a maker of industrial bags for radioactive and hazardous waste, this month reasserted its federal court patent-infringement claim against a rival and fought back against that company’s counterclaim of improper behavior. In an Oct. 1 filing in U.S. District Court, the Clinton, La.-based company acknowledged that an employee in early May photographed work being […]

Valve replacement at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is expected to wrap up this month, according to the Department of Energy. Meanwhile, a new project baseline for the facility submitted earlier this year is still under DOE review. Parsons, the DOE contractor building and initially operating the facility, in April discovered […]

The Energy Department has apparently decided having two contractors running the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state is like having too many cooks in the kitchen. The department hopes to improve productivity by not having two contractors “competing for priorities because they are working on the same equipment,” Dawn MacDonald, DOE Office […]

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is considering a 10-year permit renewal for the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory. The current permit expired June 4. However, INL cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho filed its renewal application six month prior to that date so it is allowed to […]

The Department of Energy has paused rollout of a solicitation for a 10-year, $14-billion contract to manage the Savannah River Site for most of the next decade, pending an internal review that could radically reshape the nuclear-weapon mission at the South Carolina facility. The agency announced the move late on Oct. 5 in a post […]

The public has 60 days to weigh in on a proposal to modify the fashion in which the Department of Energy classifies “high-level radioactive waste” (HLW), following publication Wednesday of a formal notice in the Federal Register. The Energy Department announced Oct. 4 it would seek to classify HLW more on its radioactive traits and […]

Fluor on Wednesday said its revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 will be about $4.6 billion, down a bit from the $4.9 billion during the same quarter in 2017. The figures Fluor announced Thursday were preliminary and the regular, full earnings report will be released Nov. 1. Fluor said to expect its third-quarter 2018 […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina sustained minor impacts from Hurricane Michael late Thursday and early Friday, during a 24-hour workforce reduction activated as the storm approached. Effects included minimal damage to some administrative buildings at the 310-square-mile Department of Energy facility near the city of Aiken, along with some loss of power and […]

The public has 60 days to weigh in on a proposal to modify the fashion in which the Department of Energy classifies “high-level radioactive waste” (HLW), following publication Wednesday of a formal notice in the Federal Register. The Energy Department announced last Thursday it would seek to classify HLW more on its radioactive traits and […]

Valve replacement at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is expected to wrap up this month, according to the Department of Energy. Parsons, the DOE contractor building and initially operating the plant, in April discovered it would need to replace 460 valves after the apparatus that controls the valves malfunctioned. The valves […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday on Tuesday issued a request for information (RFI)/sources sought for the next stage in cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state. The DOE Office of Environmental Management is officially calling this “Phase 1B” of deactivating and tearing down buildings at West Valley, plus conducting soil […]

The state of Washington has issued the permits needed for Bechtel National to complete construction of the final support facility at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant to allow treatment of low-activity radioactive waste by a federal court deadline of 2023. Construction of the plant has advanced significantly, with the concrete walls of the 18,400-square-foot […]

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is considering a 10-year permit renewal for Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory. The current permit expired June 4. However, lab management contractor Fluor Idaho filed its renewal application prior to that date so it is allowed to continue to operate, […]

A new legally binding deadline requires cesium and strontium capsules at the Hanford Site in Washington state to be moved to dry storage by August 2025, though some key stakeholders argued the work should done sooner. The Department of Energy and its regulators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington state Department of Ecology, […]

The Energy Department is reviewing bid proposals for the potential $150 million contract for occupational medical services at the Hanford Site in Washington state, an agency official told an industry gathering Thursday in Knoxville, Tenn. The bid deadline closed in August for the successor contract to contract now held by HPM Corp. of Kennewick, Wash. […]

The federal government has lifted spending restrictions placed on Bechtel National purchasing after it addressed issues raised in a routine audit by the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency. In an Oct. 5 announcement, Bechtel said it received notification on Oct. 1 that its purchasing system had been reapproved for subcontracting activities, including at the Waste […]

The Energy Department has apparently decided having two contractors running the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state is like having too many cooks in the kitchen. The department hopes to improve productivity by not having two contractors “competing for priorities because they are working on the same equipment,” Dawn MacDonald, DOE Office […]

The Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup officials are optimistic an overhaul of the contracting process will enable some sites undergoing environmental remediation to “leapfrog the current life-cycle baseline, and get us to done-done quicker,” a senior official said Wednesday. The Office of Environmental Management (EM), with a current-year budget exceeding $7 billion, is responsible for remediation […]

The Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) resumed operations Tuesday following a nearly two-month outage for routine maintenance. Meanwhile, the site’s Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU), which treats a different form of liquid waste, will remain offline until mid-October. Both facilities were shut down on Aug. 8 for maintenance, which meant liquid […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management will within a few days formally propose to change the way it interprets the term “high-level radioactive waste” (HLW). A Federal Register notice, expected to be posted next week, will outline DOE’s plan to classify high-level waste more on its radioactive characteristics and less on its source […]

Contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) received more than 96 percent of its fee during the second half of 2017 for liquid waste management at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Of an available $12.44 million for work performed between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2017, SRR earned $12 million, or 96.4 percent […]