Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The Department of Energy on Wednesday formally started the bidding process on one or multiple new contracts for disposal of federal low-level waste and mixed-low-level waste. Interested parties have until Sept. 22 to submit questions, to LLW_MLLWDisposal@emcbc.doe.gov. Bids are due by 3 p.m. Oct. 23 via FedConnect. “DOE intends, but is not required, to award one […]

HBO’s satirical “Last Week Tonight” on Sunday gave over much of its 30-minute broadcast time to the potential threat posed to the United States by its growing stockpile of nuclear waste. Using data from sources including the Nuclear Energy Institute and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, host John Oliver called attention to more than 71,000 tons of spent […]

A stop work order was issued at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant after workers learned that plutonium and americium were found in high-volume air samples collected at the Energy Department facility’s Rattlesnake Barricade. The samples were collected by the Washington state Department of Health on June 8, the day workers were ordered to take […]

Hanford Site workers have begun the push to empty most of the remaining waste in the final tank at the C Tank Farm, 19 years after preparations for waste retrieval at the farm began. If work goes as planned, Tank C-105 could be emptied to regulatory standards by the end of the year. C-105 is […]

The parties to a federal lawsuit on protection of Hanford Site workers from chemical vapors are requesting another trial delay while they pursue a settlement agreement. Plaintiffs and defendants asked U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice on Wednesday to postpone the trial from June 11, 2018, to July 25, 2018. It is the fourth trial delay […]

The Department of Energy has established its panel of experts to help guide planning to stabilize an underground tunnel filled with radioactive waste from the Hanford Site’s PUREX Plant. The eight-person group – consisting of DOE officials, representatives from Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M, U.S. academics, and a Canadian Nuclear Laboratories executive — will meet first […]

The partially collapsed waste storage tunnel at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state should be additionally stabilized by the end of the year, cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. said Tuesday. The company announced the award of a $2.8 million subcontract to Intermech Inc., of Richland, Wash., to fill PUREX Plant […]

The state of Idaho and the Department of Energy have resolved a $648,000 fine levied for the federal agency’s failure to start operating a liquid waste treatment facility at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) was built to process 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste produced during Cold War-era spent […]

HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” on Sunday gave over much of its 30-minute broadcast time to the threat posed to the United States by its growing stockpile of nuclear waste. Using data from sources including the Nuclear Energy Institute and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, host John Oliver called attention to more than 71,000 tons of spent […]

Pike County, Ohio, Auditor Erica J. Snodgrass has added her voice to the growing list of opponents of a nuclear waste disposal facility to be built at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site. “I want to see more economic development in Pike County. I want more jobs in Pike County. However, we should pursue these […]

One of the primary cleanup contractors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has finished its assessment of the June spread of contamination during demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant. The evaluation by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation identified a need to augment the “work package hazard control set” and to improve measures […]

The secondary bottom of a double-shell tank at the Hanford Site “has likely failed,” the Washington state Department of Ecology said last week in a letter to the Department of Energy. There is no sign, though, that any radioactive waste is leaking out of the tank into the environment, officials said Friday. The specific concern is that […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) could be just days from awarding a new contract for legacy nuclear cleanup operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. A major procurements update from EM, dated Aug. 11, says the contract was due to be issued from June to August of this year. The […]

CH2M said this month it continues to wait on a ruling from the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals regarding a $40.1 million fee the company believes a former joint venture is owed for cleanup at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory. CH2M-WG Idaho (CWI) was the prime remediation provider at the facility from May 2005 to March 2016, succeeded by […]

Fluor Corp. has posted an online help-wanted advertisement connected to liquid waste management at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The company is not a member of the current liquid waste team at SRS, but is widely believed to have joined with Westinghouse Government Services to bid on the upcoming contract. The job […]

After five years, the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee has resumed shipping transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The waste is largely from research and isotope production operations previously carried out at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, according to a press release from DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry made his first trip to the Hanford Site on Tuesday, touring facilities that will be used to treat radioactive waste left over from Cold War-era plutonium production. The former Texas governor walked through the Pretreatment Facility for the Waste Treatment Plant that Bechtel National is building to convert up to 56 […]

S&K Logistics Services will stay on as the technical assistance provider for the Department of Energy’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) project in Utah, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) announced last week. The Montana-based company won a five-year contract worth $20 million to $24.5 million, according to an Aug. 10 DOE EM […]

Atkins executive Alan Parker has voluntarily withdrawn his name from consideration as a candidate for the position of Energy Department assistant secretary for environmental management, industry sources said. Parker, president and project manager for the Atkins-led DOE contractor Mid-America Conversion Services, was reported in July to be on the White House’s list of potential nominees. […]

Management at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has acknowledged it will not meet upcoming contractual milestones for treatment of nitrate salts, according to a recently released site report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The Energy Department laboratory’s Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility (WCRRF) is treating 60 containers of remediated […]

A key piece of technology at the Department of Energy’s Idaho site has in 100,000 hours of operation compacted over 238,000 containers of transuranic waste. The “supercompactor” at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project compresses the 55-gallon drums into pucks just 5 to 7 inches thick, according to an Aug. 2 press release from site […]

Bad news about power plants, nuclear and otherwise, dominated discussion during Fluor Corp.’s second-quarter earnings call Thursday, shouldering out talk of the company’s work on clearnup of the Energy Deaprtment’s nuclear legacy. That latter work has gone well this year for the company, according to its latest 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fluor […]

The Department of Energy plans by the end of August to release a draft request for proposals to replace the contract now held by Mission Support Alliance for services at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The new Hanford mission essential services contractor would provide site services, security and emergency operations, land management, information technology […]

The Department of Energy said this week it wants to bring in a “best and brightest” panel of experts to study the second tunnel used to store radioactive waste from the Hanford Site’s PUREX plant. The federal agency told Washington state Tuesday that it would enhance surveillance and monitoring until it proposes a method for […]

In a long-awaited development that figures to send ripples throughout the Energy Department’s Cold War nuclear cleanup program, Jacobs Engineering of Dallas will acquire engineering services company CH2M for $2.85 billion in cash and stock. Jacobs will also assume $416 million of CH2M debt under the transaction, which is expected to close in the fourth […]

Glyn Trenchard has been named assistant manager of the Hanford Site Tank Farms Project for the Department of Energy Office of River Protection. He will oversee the storage, treatment, and disposal of 56 million gallons of waste stored in underground tanks starting Aug. 6. Trenchard joined the Office of River Protection in 1998 and has […]

French waste management company Veolia plans to acquire Ohio-based Wastren Advantage in a move that would further boost the Paris-based company’s reach into the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup market. “I can confirm we are in the process of being acquired by Veolia subject to the necessary approvals from DOE for our mitigated entity,” Wastren Chief […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry postponed a visit this week to the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said. The meeting had not been rescheduled at deadline Friday for Weapons Complex Monitor. “While I’m disappointed that Secretary Perry cannot make it to Piketon on Monday I’m pleased he has indicated that he […]

The Energy Department will host a pair of meetings about the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico later this month, including an industry day for those interested in bidding on a contract to build parts of the mine’s new ventilation system. The first of the two meetings, scheduled for Aug. 8, involves “strategic planning for […]

Tuesday was the 10th anniversary of the start of construction of the Energy Department’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina — an occasion unheralded by either the agency or its contractor while lawmakers again debate whether to cancel the facility. As part of an arms-control agreement with Russia, initiated in 2000 and finalized in 2010, […]