Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The heads of the Department of Energy’s multibillion-dollar nuclear arms and cleanup programs are slated to testify Wednesday in a Senate hearing that could shift the course of the weapons complex policies Congress writes into this year’s annual defense authorization bill. The witness list includes Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who was confirmed last month as head of […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., has extracted more than 3,000 tons of salt since Jan. 15 when it resumed its underground mining operations, a spokesman for site prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said Friday. NWP spokesman Donavan Mager cited the figure during in a phone call and email exchange […]

The aftermath of the February 2014 radiation release that closed the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for almost three years is the common thread between two recent developments at the nation’s only underground repository for transuranic waste. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments through April 19 on whether to […]

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday signed into law a bill that is expected to increase the number of Hanford Site workers’ compensation claims approved by the state Department of Labor and Industries. The legislation would require the state to presume a wide range of illnesses were caused by working for as little as […]

Following a 14-month outage, liquid waste processing at the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site is expected to restart by the end of the April. The South Carolina facility said in January operations would begin by March. But that milestone has been delayed by a month, Sonya Goines, DOE spokeswoman at Savannah River, said last […]

The U.S. Energy Department appears to be reaching out to all the teams that bid on the $4.7 billion contract to manage liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, after the Government Accountability Office last month upheld one protest against the deal, industry sources said this week. Two industry sources said Thursday […]

Due to potential conflicts of interest, the U.S. Energy Department has determined potential bidders for the $4 billion Hanford Mission Essential Service Contract should not be part of five other key contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Energy Department issued a draft request for proposals for the 10-year contract in November, with […]

Management relied too heavily on near real-time continuous air monitors (CAMs) to check for airborne radioactive particles during demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, according to the root cause evaluation for the December spread of radioactive contamination from the project. Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. on Thursday submitted its evaluation […]

The U.S. Energy Department said last week it has renewed a cooperative agreement with Vanderbilt University for nuclear cleanup research. The latest iteration is worth $15 million over five years. The Nashville, Tenn., institution is part of the multi-university “Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation III” (CRESP). The program is designed to promote “cost-effective, […]

A hold by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is seemingly the only barrier remaining between Anne Marie White and a vote by the full Senate on her nomination to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. The Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday it on March 1 automatically advanced White’s nomination to head the Energy […]

Faced with local news coverage raising questions about her expense account, and in the middle of a state legislative campaign, Andrea Romero acknowledged Friday her days at the helm of an advocacy group for communities near the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are likely over. “It would be hard for me […]

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday signed into law a bill that is expected to increase the number of Hanford Site workers’ compensation claims approved by the state Department of Labor and Industries. The legislation would require the state to presume a wide range of illnesses were caused by working for as little as […]

The U.S. Energy Department appears to be reaching out to all the teams that bid on the $4.7 billion contract to manage liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, after the Government Accountability Office last month upheld one protest against the deal, industry sources said this week. One industry source said Tuesday DOE officials […]

Due to potential conflicts of interest, the U.S. Energy Department has determined potential bidders for the $4 billion Hanford Mission Essential Service Contract should not be part of five other key contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Energy Department issued a draft request for proposals for the potential 10-year contract in November, […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday it has advanced the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. However, there was still no official word on whether Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) might lift his hold on the nomination anytime soon. White was also approved by the Senate Energy […]

Anne Marie White, the Trump administration’s nominee for assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, understands Congress is getting antsy over the slow progress on key projects within the Energy Department’s $6.5 billion nuclear cleanup program. In 13 pages of questions and answers submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee before her confirmation hearing last […]

As of Friday, Rick Perry had been U.S. secretary of energy for one year. Like his predecessor, Ernest Moniz, Perry has been on Twitter since the first day of his tenure at the top floor of the Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C. In that span of time, Perry tweeted exactly — yes, you read that correctly — […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments through April 19 on whether to sign off on the updated transuranic waste characterization program at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project. An affirmative decision could lead to AMWTP shipping TRU waste to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Energy […]

The U.S. Energy Department said Thursday it has renewed a cooperative agreement with Vanderbilt University for nuclear cleanup research. The latest iteration is worth $15 million over five years. The Nashville, Tenn., institution is part of the multi-university “Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation III” (CRESP). The program is designed to promote “cost-effective, risk-based” […]

Mission Support Alliance (MSA) has earned its highest award fee since it became the Hanford Site’s services contractor in 2009. The Department of Energy announced late Monday it was awarding MSA $20.4 million, or about 94 percent of the maximum $21.7 million available for fiscal 2017. That was more than the $19.2 million, or 91 […]

A panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine kicked off two days of public meetings in Richland, Wash., on Wednesday as it studies supplemental processing of low-activity waste at the U.S. Energy Department’s nearby Hanford Site. The data gathering will culminate in several reports by the National Academies on treatment of low-activity […]

WASHINGTON — At the end of a roughly two-hour hearing that focused for only a few minutes on the Department of Energy’s $6.5-billion-a-year Cold War nuclear cleanup operation, no senator indicated any opposition to the White House’s pick to lead the program. Anne Marie White “got off pretty easy,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), acting chairman […]

Jeffrey Kash Grimes, who has been acting director of the U.S. Energy Department Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC) since December, has been named the permanent head of the procurement operation. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced Grimes’ promotion on Thursday. He replaces Ralph Holland, who retired at the end of 2017. The Cincinnati-based […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has improved its emergency planning and preparation, but work remains to correct shortcomings identified in a 2016 report, according to new findings from DOE’s internal watchdog. The Office of Emergency Management Assessments, within the department’s independent Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA), studied WIPP emergency […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) says the final request for proposals for construction of the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn., could come any time now. The office said in a Feb. 6 procurement notice the final RFP could be issued within 15 to 45 days. One-on-one meetings […]

BWX Technologies President and CEO Rex Geveden sounded confident Wednesday that a partnership led by his company will retain a 10-year contract for liquid waste management at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina – even after the Government Accountability Office upheld a competitor’s protest against the deal. In a redacted version of […]

The U.S. Energy Department has committed to remediation of existing landfills and plumes at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Ohio, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said following a Feb. 23 meeting with stakeholders. Officials in the nearby village of Piketon have raised concerns over such contaminated areas inside the Perimeter Road in connection with […]

The U.S. Energy Department said Wednesday it will begin the bidding process for the new Savannah River Site management and operations (M&O) contract by May 1. In an online announcement, DOE’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center said that, within 30 to 60 days, it would issue a draft request for proposals (RFP) to kick off the […]

BWX Technologies President and CEO Rex Geveden sounded confident Wednesday that a partnership led by his company will retain a 10-year contract for liquid waste management at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina – even after the Government Accountability Office upheld a competitors’ protest against the deal. In a redacted version of […]

Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies, a major Energy Department contractor, said Tuesday it earned $430 million in revenue during the fourth quarter of 2017, a 6.5 percent increase over the $404 million it took in during the same period in 2017. BWXT said its revenue for the full year was $1.69 billion for 2017, an 8.8 […]