Office of Environmental Management (EM)

Energy Secretary Rick Perry should not assume New Mexico will automatically accept a dramatic expansion in the mission of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) told fellow members the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. While transuranic waste from DOE sites is shipped to the underground repository for permanent disposal, Udall cautioned […]

The U.S. Energy Department this week has proposed doing additional supplemental environmental projects (SEPs) in Idaho to offset state fines for the agency’s failure to successfully start the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory. The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on Tuesday received DOE’s written proposal for three more environmental […]

BWX Technologies-led Savannah River EcoManagement answered additional Energy Department questions this week about its revised proposal to become the next liquid waste manager at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, an industry source said. Personnel from the partnership, which also includes Bechtel National and Honeywell International, were scheduled to make a brief presentation and […]

The Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee on Tuesday passed to the full committee a fiscal 2019 spending plan that would significantly boost funding for nuclear cleanup overseen by the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) indicated the proposal includes $7.2 billion for environmental remediation of Manhattan Project and […]

Washington, D.C.-based BluePath Labs has won a five-year contract to provide administrative and business support services for the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management. In a Monday press release, DOE’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center said the BluePath agreement is an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract covering firm-fixed-price and time-and-materials task orders. The deal has a maximum value […]

While it has been looking since the fourth quarter of 2017, the prime contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) has not yet hired a director of mining. Nuclear Waste Partnership still hopes to find the right candidate in the near future, spokesman Donavan Mager said by telephone last week. Making the […]

CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. lost fee money for fiscal 2017 over a spread of radioactive contamination at the Hanford Site, but still brought in $9.9 million from the Department of Energy. That is 89 percent of the nearly $11.1 million available for the budget year ended Sept. 30, 2017, according to a fee summary […]

A record of decision was amended Friday as one of the regulatory steps needed for the Department of Energy to proceed with moving cesium and strontium capsules from underwater storage to dry storage at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The amended ROD specifies that interim storage of the capsules will continue, but in dry […]

Written testimony from a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) official Friday, before the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee, adds more details to the state’s argument for classifying much of the West Valley Demonstration Project’s remaining waste as defense-related transuranic waste and shipping it to the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot […]

The Department of Energy aims later this month to resume liquid waste processing at the Savannah River Site, two months after the initial March projection. Meeting that schedule would cap off a 15- month pause of waste processing at the DOE facility near Aiken, S.C. The two-month delay was caused by a malfunctioning diesel generator […]

The Energy Department as of Thursday had yet to finalize an agreement to keep incumbent Savannah River Remediation (SRR) overseeing liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina beyond May 31. A DOE proposal published March 21 would keep SRR on the job for up to another 10 months, to the end […]

A new $288 million ventilation system, intended to allow the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico to conduct simultaneous underground salt mining and disposal of transuranic waste, has been approved by Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White. “This will be a significant improvement for WIPP in support of […]

The Department of Energy would receive about $53 million less than requested for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in fiscal 2019 under legislation advanced Wednesday by the House Appropriations Committee. All told, the DOE facility in South Carolina would receive $1.38 billion under the energy and water funding bill for the budget […]

Researchers have vitrified 2 gallons of radioactive waste removed from a Hanford Site storage tank in a first-of-a-kind demonstration of the processes that will be used at the Waste Treatment Plant being built at the Energy Department facility in Washington state. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers said it was the first time Hanford tank waste […]

A project to advance testing on whether some radioactive waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site could be grouted rather than converted to glass would proceed under direction from legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee advanced its marked -up fiscal 2019 energy appropriations bill for a vote […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management plans to try a newly minted alternate method to analyze contractor costs when it issues the final request for proposals (RFP) for the potential $4 billion Hanford Mission Essential Services Contract later this spring. Without going into detail, Contracting Officer Lori Sehlhorst announced the alternate method in a […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday rejected an amendment to its fiscal 2019 energy and water bill that would have siphoned away certain increased funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and Energy Department environmental cleanup programs. During the committee markup of the bill, Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) proposed the amendment to help restore […]

The House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved a $16 million funding haircut for cleanup of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Tennessee. If the spending level survives the congressional appropriations process, financing from the Energy Department’s Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund for the project would drop from about $195 million in […]

The Energy Department and the state of New York disagree on whether waste at the West Valley Demonstration Project should be considered defense-related, according to testimony Friday before the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee. New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) General Counsel Noah Shaw told the panel both high-level […]

An advisory body to the Department of Energy has declined to ask government agencies reconsider their approval of a planned on-site radioactive waste disposal cell Portsmouth Site in Ohio The Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board on May 10 voted 10-6 to urge DOE and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to reopen the formal 2015 record […]

Las Vegas-based Longenecker & Associates said Tuesday it has hired nuclear industry veteran Mike Briggs to the newly created post of senior program manager for operational support. Briggs, who has worked on major projects within the Energy Department complex, will oversee L&A’s operational support business, which includes training, nuclear safety, and radiation protection. “As L&A […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday rejected an amendment to its fiscal 2019 energy and water bill that would have siphoned away certain increased funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and Energy Department environmental cleanup programs. During the committee markup of the bill, Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) proposed the amendment to help restore […]

The proposed House of Representatives’ fiscal 2019 spending plan for Hanford Site would provide more money than the Department of Energy requested but would not match current spending levels, according to information from the staff of Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.). On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee sent its marked-up energy bill to the full House. […]

The House Appropriations Committee is recommending $6.9 billion in fiscal 2019 for the nuclear cleanup program overseen by the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM). That would be $257 million less than the fiscal 2018 appropriation but $268 million more than the Trump administration’s request for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. Ahead of […]

The Department of Energy aims later this month to resume liquid waste processing at the Savannah River Site, two months after the initial March projection. Meeting that schedule would cap off a 15- month pause of waste processing at the DOE facility near Aiken, S.C. The two-month delay was caused by a malfunctioning diesel generator […]

An official from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is expected to make the agency’s case Friday on Capitol Hill that the West Valley Demonstration Project is home to defense-related waste. It’s a distinction the state hopes will provide a quicker path to permanent disposal given the federal Land Withdrawal Act […]

The House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee on Friday will consider legislation reauthorizing appropriations for an Energy Department cleanup site in western New York state. Rep. Tom Reed’s (R-N.Y.) H.R. 2389 would reauthorize the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP), through 2026 and redefine its radioactive waste as specifically defense-related. The bill would revise Section […]

A new $288 million ventilation system, meant to allow the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico to conduct simultaneous underground salt mining and disposal of transuranic waste, has been approved by Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne White. “This will be a significant improvement for WIPP in support of its […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management plans to try a newly minted alternate method to analyze costs when it issues the final request for proposals (RFP) for the potential $4 billion Hanford Mission Essential Services Contract (HMESC) later this spring. Without going into detail, Contracting Officer Lori Sehlhorst announced the alternate method in a […]

The House’s version of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act would require the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management office to notify Congress within two days if more workers are contaminated by radioactive material at the Hanford site in Washington state. The bill also would require the Environmental Management (EM) office to provide a report to […]