Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The fiscal 2018 omnibus budget bill signed by President Donald Trump on Friday would provide $7.1 billion for Department of Energy’s environmental management activities, $706 million above the $6.4 billion fiscal 2017 enacted level. That amounts to roughly an 11-percent increase on a year-over-year basis. Congress by early Friday approved the $1.3 trillion budget that […]

SNC-Lavalin Group subsidiary Atkins has hired longtime Energy Department procurement chief Ralph Holland as vice president for commercial development in Atkins Nuclear Secured Holdings Corp. Holland will support Atkins senior leaders in areas including strategy, contract management, and contract assurance. The announcement did not specify if he is replacing another manager or filling a newly […]

The fiscal 2018 omnibus spending legislation approved by Congress by Friday morning includes $2.42 billion for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, not including security spending. The bill provides $203 million more for the Washington state cleanup site than requested by the Donald Trump administration for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1., and would […]

The U.S. Department of Energy partially or fully approved 15 of the 20 recommendations submitted by the Savannah River Site’s Citizens Advisory Board (CAB), from January 2016 through December 2017. Of the five other recommendations, three are still pending and the other two were denied in full. The high approval rating signals to board members […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management on Thursday issued its request for proposals for the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and scheduled a pre-proposal site tour for April 10. The announcement had been expected after DOE issued the draft RFP in November and said last month it was preparing to […]

PHOENIX, Ariz. — During 2017, its first year of operation following a nearly three-year shutdown, the Energy Department Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico resumed disposing of transuranic waste, tightened its vetting of incoming shipments, and resumed salt mining, officials said this week. The nation’s only underground repository for TRU waste, which is overseen […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed Anne Marie White to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, after Energy Secretary Rick Perry agreed to suspend the agency’s uranium barter program. The commitment by Perry, offered publicly during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, evidently helped persuade Sen. John Barrasso […]

In the aftermath of a successful bid protest, the Energy Department expects to “re-award” a 10-year liquid waste contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina in late summer or early fall, a DOE procurement official said Wednesday. Norbert Doyle, DOE’s acting deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and project management, offered the schedule during […]

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Tuesday he plans to look into the transfer of the Energy Department project manager for the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP), at the Hanford Site in Washington state, shortly after he raised concerns about missing documentation on steel being used at the facility. On March 6, then-WTP Federal Project Director William […]

Another new leader has been named for the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) project as recovery continues from a spread of radioactive contamination from demolition in December. John Lehew, president of Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. (CHPRC) from 2008 to 2012, has been named the new demolition manager. Workers at the […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a Senate panel Tuesday he would like to end his agency’s uranium barter program, possibly as soon as fiscal 2019. Testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on DOE’s $30.6 billion budget request for fiscal 2019, Perry said trading excess government uranium is a bad policy and should […]

Anne Marie White could be confirmed this week as assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, and in the meantime has already started working as an adviser at the Energy Department, a DOE official said Monday. “She has reported to DOE” in a senior advisory role, according to Jim Colgary, chief of staff to Deputy […]

Gaps in safety assurance documents filed by Bechtel National are not serious enough to imperil the schedule for the Waste Treatment Plant the company is building at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the head of DOE’s Hanford Office of River Protection said Monday. “No, I don’t think it’s a significant issue,” ORP […]

A Department of Energy review has found more quality assurance issues at the Waste Treatment Plant being built at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Quality records “needed to demonstrate that the important-to-safety structural steel could perform its safety function were either missing or of indeterminate quality,” according to a March 6 letter from DOE’s […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, this morning will kick off the plenary session for the 2018 Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Ariz. Fleischmann, whose district includes the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation, will speak this morning at the Phoenix Convention Center alongside Billy Morrison, CEO of Veolia Nuclear […]

The Department of Energy has named a new federal project director and assistant manager for the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant as the $17 billion project moves into a new phase. Tom Fletcher, now deputy manager of DOE’s Hanford Richland Operations Office, will move to the DOE Hanford Office of River Protection to take the […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday expressed his opposition to continuing sales of excess government uranium to help finance cleanup of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, an issue that is holding up confirmation of Anne Marie White to head the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The topic came up in the […]

The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into vitrified glass by the end of 2021, in advance of a legal deadline, the highest-ranking official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant energy secretary for environmental management, […]

A Department of Energy proposal to fill a Hanford Site radioactive waste storage tunnel with grout will not preclude future cleanup options for the tunnel, according to information presented at a public meeting Wednesday in Richland, Wash. The meeting covered DOE’s proposed changes to the Hanford Dangerous Waste Permit issued by the state of Washington, […]

Mid-America Conversion Services earned just under $1.1 million in award fees for eight months of work on depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to the contractor’s recently released performance scorecard. That was just under half of the $2.3 million available for fiscal […]

By John Stang Complications in waste treatment operations and closure costs of a facility in Tennessee trimmed Perma-Fix Environmental Services’ revenue and produced an operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2017. However, executives said the company’s outlook is strong in 2018 as it vies for new government and commercial contracts and looks toward a potential […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy’s final budget for the 2018 fiscal year that began last October might be published Monday, the agency’s top House appropriator told reporters Thursday. After a hearing on the 2019 budget with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said congressional leaders “hope to put it [the bill] online” […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is promising by to soon spell out steps for “final” revisions to bid proposals for the liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At least one industry source, however, doubts DOE will fully reconsider its original contract award from last fall. After […]

The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into vitrified glass by the end of 2021, in advance of a legal deadline, the highest-ranking official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant energy secretary for environmental management, […]

Vahid Majidi, a former Pentagon and national-lab hand who most recently worked in industry, is scheduled today to replace the departing Terry Michalske as director of the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. Majidi will be executive vice president at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), which runs the lab and the Savannah River Site’s non-liquid-waste-cleanup mission for […]

Mid-America Conversion Services earned just under $1.1 million in award fees for eight months of work on depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to the contractor’s recently released performance scorecard. That was just under half of the $2.3 million available for fiscal […]

During meetings today in Aiken, S.C., the three parties that bid on the Savannah River Site liquid waste contract could get some insight into what steps the Department of Energy will take after the Government Accountability Office in February sustained one of the bid protests over the $4.7 billion award to Savannah River EcoManagement. An […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board is preparing to issue a recommendation on the future of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), sources said this week. The Energy Department advisory board will hear public input on potential future uses for the AMWTP during a conference call on March 28. The […]

U.S. Energy Department officials, possibly including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, have reached out to persuade Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to lift his hold on the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, an informed source said Monday. Barrasso wants White and DOE to commit to ending the agency’s […]

Details about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal for Cold War nuclear cleanup and civilian nuclear waste programs still were not available at deadline Monday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, only days before Energy Secretary Rick Perry is due on Capitol Hill to explain his agency’s latest spending plans. The week the White […]