Office of Environmental Management (EM)

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 […]

Now that Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth (FBP) has “pulled the trigger” on what the United Steelworkers considers an improper reduction in force this week at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the union expects to take its case before an arbitrator. “We’ve already filed a bunch of grievances” that go before the company’s labor relations department, […]

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 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 to […]

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 […]

The Energy Department and contractor Fluor Idaho have gathered up the loose material that spewed out of four breached drums of radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory, but have still not determined the cause of the April 11 incident. Once a root cause is determined, Airlock 5 of the Accelerated Retrieval Project 5 facility […]

URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), prime cleanup contractor for the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, earned a total of $6.24 million in fee awards for the first half of 2018, according to a recent performance scorecard. The contractor garnered 100 percent of the potential $2.59 million in objective criteria fee, along with $3.65 million, […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management had a busy Thursday on the procurement front, announcing three contract awards worth nearly $150 million. The biggest award by far was a contract worth almost $137 million over up to five years to a Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve) subsidiary, Enterprise Technical Assistance Services (E-TAS), for technical support […]

The House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee voted Wednesday to recommend the Government Accountability Office (GAO) prepare a report on the types of radioactive waste at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state, but stopped short of saying the material should be deemed defense-related. The panel approved, by voice vote, an […]

As she closes out her third full month at the helm of the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office, Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White might not be finished putting together her leadership team. Bechtel Project Manager Mark Frei is said to be in consideration for a top Environmental Management post, possibly even […]

The Energy Department is advertising for a deputy manager at the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) in Tennessee. The position has not been filled permanently since Jay Mullis became OREM manager last fall. Mullis had been OREM’s acting manager since October 2016 and deputy manager since February 2015. The Energy Department posted an […]

With both chambers of Congress having now given their blessing to fiscal 2019 spending packages that provide in the neighborhood of $7 billion for Department of Energy nuclear cleanup operations, it is now up to a House-Senate conference committee to decide the exact amount. The conference committee had not been scheduled to start its work […]

Energy Department Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said Tuesday it could take an additional year to secure New Mexico approval to change the way the volume of transuranic waste is counted for underground disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The New Mexico Environment Department said June 1 it plans a more extensive […]

The first of up to two dozen containers of highly radioactive sludge was trucked Monday morning to storage in the center of the Hanford Site in Washington state. Workers have for nine years been preparing for the sludge transfer from underwater containers in the K West Reactor Basin, which is just 400 yards from the […]

As she closes out her third full month at the helm of the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office, Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White might not be finished putting together her leadership team. Bechtel Project Manager Mark Frei is said to be in consideration for a top Environmental Management post, possibly even […]

Energy Department Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said Tuesday it could take an additional year to get New Mexico approval to change the way the volume of transuranic waste is counted for underground disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The New Mexico Environment Department said June 1 it plans a more extensive […]

URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) officially announced Monday that it has hired a former Energy Department senior adviser for environmental management issues, Roger Jarrell, for a government and stakeholder relations position. Jarrell, who left DOE on June 15, was a Trump administration political appointee who joined the department in January 2017 and started working on nuclear […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries said Tuesday it on June 4 formally made Sharon Brady the new chief operating officer for subsidiary Stoller Newport News Nuclear (SN3), a significant player in the Energy Department complex. Brady has worked in a variety of corporate and government contract posts at SN3 predecessor Stoller since 2001, the company said in […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would continue to enjoy a hefty budget under the “minibus” appropriation package for fiscal 2019 passed by the Senate on Monday evening. Voting senators approved the proposal 86-5. The Senate bill, which covers funding for energy and water development programs, among others, would provide $7.2 billion in total […]

The Energy Department has drilled two open-borehole bedrock wells as it tries to gauge the extent of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in groundwater within Area IV of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California. The Energy Department is also seeking to determine if a VOC source exists at Building 4457, part of the Hazardous Materials […]

The first of up to two dozen containers of highly radioactive sludge was trucked Monday morning to storage in the center of the Hanford Site in Washington state. Workers have for nine years been preparing for the sludge transfer from underwater containers in the K West Reactor Basin, which is just 400 yards from the […]

The full Senate is scheduled to vote at 5:30 p.m. today on an appropriations package including the Department of Energy’s proposed fiscal 2019 budget. The so-called minibus spending legislation is a combination of three appropriations bills, one of which is an Energy and Water Development act with some $35 billion in proposed funding for the […]

The Energy Department is advertising for a deputy manager at the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) in Tennessee. The position has not been filled permanently since Jay Mullis became OREM manager last fall. Mullis had been OREM’s acting manager since October 2016, and was also the deputy manager since February 2015. The Energy […]

A newly updated organizational chart suggests the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management has made further changes to its leadership hierarchy. Angela Watmore as of June 1 is listed as an acting chief of staff and senior adviser within DOE’s nuclear cleanup branch. The slot was described as “vacant” in an April 19 version of […]

Los Alamos National Security (LANS) no longer has the Energy Department’s legacy cleanup contract at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, but it posted a strong performance during the most recent fee review period. LANS took home 94 percent of the total fee available for its last review period as lab cleanup contractor, […]

The Department of Energy said Thursday it plans to extend the Hanford Site Plateau Remediation Contract held by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co.  The proposed contract extension is for up to an additional year through Sept. 30, 2019. CH2M’s current 10-year contract is set to expire in just over three months at the end of […]

Four workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state received medical evaluations for potential exposure to chemical vapors over the last week, according to waste tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions. In the most recent incident, three workers reported suspicious odors Thursday morning outside the AW Tank Farm, where supplied-air respirators […]

In an introductory letter to new Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) highlighted a number of safety concerns across the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup complex. The independent safety watchdog is tracking several issues at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Hanford Site […]

The Energy Department found no evidence its conflicts of interest rules were violated when the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board (SSAB) voted May 10 whether to request the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, and DOE, reopen the 2015 record of decision for an on-site waste disposal cell at the cleanup site. Advisory panel member Dennis Foreman, […]

Streamlining top-level management of the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup operation is one part of a sweeping blueprint for restructuring the federal government, which the White House Housed unveiled on Thursday. The report, “Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century: Reform Plan and Reorganization Recommendations,” proposes to increase efficiency in agency operations across the federal government. That […]

After searching since late 2017, Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP), the Energy Department’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, has hired a director of underground mining. The contractor and DOE said Tuesday Pete Graham, who previously worked as a plant manager for US Silica in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., started at WIPP […]