Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina would look for ways to accelerate shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico under a proposal being studied by a local advisory board. The Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board is expected to vote on making the recommendation to DOE […]

The House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee voted Thursday to reauthorize the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state and instruct the Government Accountability Office to prepare a report on radioactive waste at the site. The bill passed on a voice vote is an amended version of legislation forwarded June 27 by the […]

Elevated levels of radioactive contamination were found last month on transuranic waste drums awaiting shipment from the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to a recent update from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). “The contamination readings were due to the decay of […]

The parties to the Tri-Party Agreement on environmental remediation of the Hanford Site in Washington state have verified that the challenging cleanup of the 618-10 Burial Ground has been completed. That meets the deadline under the agreement for completion of the project by the end of this fiscal year, according to the Department of Energy. […]

The House and Senate are a step closer to resolving their differences on a three-bill appropriations package that includes the Department of Energy fiscal 2019 budget, after the upper chamber on Wednesday voted to begin final negotiations on the measure. In a procedural move that cleared the way for lawmakers from each chamber to negotiate […]

The current 30-month option period for Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s $3.4 billion decontamination and decommissioning contract for the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, is scheduled to expire Sept. 30. While a DOE spokesperson confirmed Tuesday the contract has not been extended beyond Sept. 30, other details were sparse. The Energy Department has not said if […]

Although RSI EnTech did not win a recently announced successor contract for technical support services at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio, company President Paul Clay thinks the 97 percent rating on a new performance scorecard demonstrates the firm’s caliber of work. RSI EnTech’s current $51 million, five-year contract at Portsmouth expires at the […]

The Energy Department is seeking Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval for a one-time shipment of 2.5 kilograms of spent nuclear fuel material from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to the Idaho National Laboratory for research purposes. The nuclear regulator said June 26 it had received DOE’s application for approval of a shipment route and […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina would look for ways to accelerate shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico under a proposal being studied by a local advisory board. The Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board is expected to vote on making the recommendation to DOE […]

Elevated levels of radioactive contamination were found last month on transuranic waste drums awaiting shipment from the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to a recent update from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). “The contamination readings were due to the decay of […]

The current 30-month option period for Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s $3.4 billion decontamination and decommissioning contract for the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, is scheduled to expire Sept. 30. While a DOE spokesperson confirmed Tuesday the contract has not been extended beyond Sept. 30, other details were sparse. The Energy Department has not said if […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management on Tuesday released a request for information and sources sought inquiry for stack dismantlement at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. The Environmental Management office is planning an upcoming solicitation for a contractor to decommission, tear down, and conduct site clearance for the High Flux Beam […]

The amount of transuranic waste already emplaced at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., taken together with known “WIPP bound” material, doesn’t leave much room for more material under the cap established by the 1992 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act. That’s a takeaway from a June 26 presentation to a National Academy […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology has issued an operating permit for the analytical laboratory at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. This permit, issued in the spring, is the state agency’s first operating approval for the plant, being built by Bechtel to turn Hanford’s radioactive tank […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management has extended the deadline from July 20 to Aug. 3 for prospective vendors to submit bids on a consolidated technical support services contract. After issuing the request for proposals on June 7, DOE last week announced an amendment to the document that extends the deadline. The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity […]

The Energy Department’s Office of River Protection could issue a sole-source contract for Rutgers University in New Jersey to study factors connected with vitrifying tank wastes at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Although DOE is not aware of other sources capable of doing the work, interested small businesses meeting certain size standards can submit […]

Three more double-shell tanks at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site contain waste with chemistry that puts them them at heightened risk of corrosion, according to a new report from tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions. The report evaluated the waste chemistry of Hanford’s oldest double-shell tank, AY-102, which developed a leak from its […]

The Savannah River Site is on pace to double-stack 358 canisters of treated radioactive liquid waste in this fiscal year, nearly double the 200 canisters stacked in fiscal 2017. All told, the Department of Energy facility near Aiken, S.C., has to date double-stacked 457 canisters of waste in one of its Glass Waste Storage Buildings […]

A Centerra Group subsidiary contracted to protect the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina took home almost $3 million of an available award fee of $3.16 million, roughly 95 percent, for the six-month period from October 2017 through March 2018. The Energy Department praised Centerra-Savannah River Site for its work providing physical protection […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), the Energy Department’s waste tank farm contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, has awarded a subcontract to AVANTech to design and build a pretreatment facility for tank wastes at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). The tank-side cesium removal demonstration project is meant to remove both cesium […]

EnergySolutions in May signed a $9.45 million contract to complete dismantling and decommissioning of the long-retired Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) facility in Arkansas. This final leg of the remediation includes placing the reactor itself into a special container in October. The reactor is one of the few structures left on the site, according […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board recently voted 7-4 to urge the Energy Department to extend the lifespan of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) by allowing the facility to process radioactive waste from out of state. The letter, posted June 27 on the panel’s website, urges DOE to continue […]

URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), prime cleanup contractor for the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, is tearing down the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Incinerator. The demolition project at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) began June 20 and should be finished this fall, a DOE spokesperson said by email Thursday. When operations began […]

A search committee for the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) in New Mexico last week interviewed candidates to become the organization’s new executive director, and could fill the post this summer. The RCLC board panel expects “to negotiate a contract with the preferred applicant over the next few weeks and plan for the entire […]

The Trump administration’s nominee to head the Energy Department branch overseeing renewable energy efforts is reportedly temporarily assigned to DOE’s Office of Environmental Management as a senior adviser. Politico reported the interim status of Daniel Simmons of Virginia on Friday. Spokespeople for DOE and its nuclear cleanup office did not respond to requests for confirmation […]

The Department of Energy is inviting potential bidders on a yet-to-be-solicited management and operations contract for the Savannah River Site to Augusta, Ga., on August 1 for what the agency calls a “technical workshop.” At the all-day workshop, DOE “will be presenting information on technical challenges associated with Management and Operation of the Savannah River […]

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) wants to know more about the Energy Department’s proposal to change the way it counts the volume of transuranic waste emplaced at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. In a June 27 letter, called a technical incompleteness determination, the state agency asked DOE and WIPP management contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership […]

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) wants to know more about the Energy Department’s proposal to change the way it counts the volume of transuranic waste emplaced at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. In a June 27 letter, called a technical incompleteness determination, the state agency asked DOE and WIPP management contractor […]

A search committee for the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) in New Mexico last week interviewed candidates to become the organization’s new executive director, and could fill the post this summer. The RCLC board panel expects “to negotiate a contract with the preferred applicant over the next few weeks and plan for the entire […]

Fluor Idaho expects in September to finish decontamination operations at the Idaho National Laboratory site where four 55-gallon drums of radioactive waste overheated and ruptured on April 11. The company also said, in a June 28 report on the incident to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, it should issue its final investigation findings in […]