Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The Hanford Site’s occupational medicine services provider earned 91.75 percent of the fee available for fiscal 2017, the Department of Energy announced Friday. Kennewick, Wash.-based HPM Corp., a small, woman-owned business founded in 2001, earned $311,950 of the available $340,000. The contractor’s performance was rated about the same as in fiscal 2016. Then it earned […]

About two months after he left the federal ranks, the former top Department of Energy official at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., joined Atkins in a new role created for him. Jack Craig, who in February retired as manager of DOE’s Savannah River Site office after three years in that role and over […]

The Department of Energy said Thursday it plans in 15 to 45 days to release a draft request for proposals for the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state. A presolicitation conference, site tour, and one-on-one sessions are tentatively scheduled for late May or June, DOE said as it released a […]

The Energy Department’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, Nuclear Waste Partnership, is likely to award a contract for construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System in May. That should be followed shortly afterward by a groundbreaking, with project completion expected in 2021, DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager […]

Declining profit margins, in some cases just 2 to 4 percent, are a major reason for the wave of mergers and acquisitions by companies that do business in the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup sector, a senior executive with one contractor said last week. Contractors can expect to receive 5 to 7 percent if everything […]

A “bulging drum” of non-radiological waste resulted in a partial evacuation of the Sigma Complex at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on Monday. The Los Alamos Fire Department responded to the Sigma facility, on the main LANL campus, at about 2:30 p.m. Monday, a lab spokesperson said by email. The plastic drum […]

The Energy Communities Alliance got some good news last month when the omnibus budget for fiscal 2018 kept in place existing Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) agreements, ECA Director of Nuclear Energy Programs Kara Colton said Monday. The budget does call for a report on how the Energy Department formulates PILT payments to communities […]

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency plans to hold the U.S. Energy Department to its promise to dig up and consolidate contamination plumes and waste landfills at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. That is according to state EPA Director Craig Butler, in an April 6 letter to James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE’s Office […]

New York state should in early 2019 issue a draft permit for interim storage of transuranic waste at the U.S. Energy Department’s Separations Process Research Unit, a state official said. The state Department of Environmental Conservation will issue the initial document for a 45-day public comment period, spokesman Rick Georgeson said by email. The department […]

The Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory suspended transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico immediately after an April 11 incident in which at least one 55-gallon drum of radioactive waste overheated and ejected its lid. The suspension was precautionary, and shipments resumed on Tuesday, Idaho Site cleanup contractor Fluor […]

The U.S. Department of Justice appears to be running out of patience after failing to reach a settlement agreement by a deadline Friday in a lawsuit with Washington Closure Hanford, a former Hanford Site prime cleanup contractor. The Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against Washington Closure, alleging it knowingly awarded small business subcontracts […]

A new list published Tuesday by federal inspectors general called out crumbling Department of Energy nuclear infrastructure as one of the federal government’s top management challenges. “Agencies may be hampered in performing their missions effectively because of breakdowns in essential equipment or hazards posed by unmaintained infrastructure,” the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity […]

Declining profit margins, in some cases just 2 to 4 percent, are a major reason for the wave of mergers and acquisitions by companies that do business in the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup sector, a senior executive with one contractor said last week. These companies might also eye new opportunities in the commercial nuclear […]

A new list published Tuesday by federal inspectors general called out crumbling Department of Energy nuclear infrastructure as one of the federal government’s top management challenges. “Agencies may be hampered in performing their missions effectively because of breakdowns in essential equipment or hazards posed by unmaintained infrastructure,” the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity […]

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency plans to hold the U.S. Energy Department to its promise to dig up and consolidate contamination plumes and waste landfills at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. That is according to state EPA Director Craig Butler, in an April 6 letter to James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE’s Office […]

The Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory suspended transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico immediately after an April 11 incident in which at least one 55-gallon drum of radioactive waste overheated and ejected its lid. The suspension was precautionary, and shipments resumed on Tuesday, Idaho Site cleanup contractor Fluor […]

President Donald Trump announced Monday he plans to nominate Dan Michael Berkovitz, a former official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM), to join the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Berkovitz served as EM deputy assistant secretary for planning, policy, and budget from 1995 to 2001, according to his LinkedIn profile. Berkovitz’s other […]

The Energy Department has renewed its Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB) for a two-year period, through April 11, 2020. The department announced the extension in an April 17 Federal Register notice. The 17-member advisory board provides DOE’s Office of Environmental Management with recommendations on a number of issues concerning specific nuclear cleanup sites. […]

Whether it’s law enforcement, water lines, or hiring practices, the Energy Department and its cleanup contractors are intertwined with their host communities in many ways. This was the overriding theme from last Thursday’s Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Oak Ridge, Tenn., City Manager Mark Watson once received a permit request to […]

The Energy Communities Alliance got some good news last month when the omnibus budget for fiscal 2018 kept in place existing Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) agreements, ECA Director of Nuclear Energy Programs Kara Colton said Monday. The budget does call for a report on how the Energy Department formulates PILT payments to communities […]

Declining profit margins, in some cases just 2 to 4 percent, are a major reason for the wave of mergers and acquisitions by companies that do business in the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup sector, a senior executive with one contractor said Thursday. The reduced margins are due in part to regulatory responsibilities and “claw-back” […]

New York should in early 2019 issue a draft permit for interim storage of transuranic waste at the Energy Department’s Separations Process Research Unit, a state official said last week. The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation will issue the initial document for a 45-day public comment period, spokesman Rick Georgeson said by email. […]

During its annual conference Thursday in Washington, D.C., the Energy Communities Alliance remembered Yakama Nation elder Russell Jim as a longtime advocate for cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state. Jim, 82, died on April 7, according to newspaper reports from Washington state. In his opening remark at ECA, Roane County, Tenn., County Executive […]

The prime cleanup contractor for the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee said this week it self-reported the unauthorized work done by two employees at a retired experimental reactor in February 2017, which led to a $120,000 penalty. URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) is taking corrective actions not just at the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment […]

Outdated equipment appears to be the cause of a potential delay in startup of the $2.3 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. While DOE is no longer publicly using the December 2018 date for the facility to begin operations, it is also not officially […]

Procurement officials at the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) are seeking to reduce the typical two-year process for awarding major contracts to one year. Tamara Miles, federal procurement director for the DOE Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center, discussed efforts to expedite contract awards during a panel session last month at the Waste […]

The management and operations contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., is reviewing three bid proposals from companies hoping to build a new permanent underground ventilation system for the deep-underground disposal site. Bid proposals were received March 21 and are now under review, Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) spokesman Donavan […]

With new leadership and more money for U.S. Energy Department environmental cleanup, community leaders and contractors attending an Energy Communities Alliance event Thursday were in an upbeat mood. Anne Marie White, sworn in March 29 as assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, appeared during a welcome luncheon at the organization’s annual conference in Washington, […]

The Department of Energy this week suggested it would not push back the deadline for would-be bidders to submit their proposals to build the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. In the request for proposals issued March 22, DOE allowed 46 days for bids to be submitted. Questions on the RFP were due […]

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Wednesday pressed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to ensure that a focus on particular projects at the Hanford Site does not come at the expense of others. Perry and other Energy Department officials appeared before the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee to discuss the agency’s $30.6 billion budget request for […]