Office of Environmental Management (EM)

A committee of the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) indicated this week it supports the Energy Department’s anticipated request to restrict airspace above agency facilities – a discussion sparked last summer after drone sightings over key areas of the South Carolina facility. The Strategic and Legacy Management Committee – one of several sub-panels […]

A $122 million waste disposal facility at the Savannah River Site is undergoing a readiness assessment and should be available for use about a year sooner than expected, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. The DOE site in South Carolina tweeted Tuesday that it is entering the final readiness assessment for Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) […]

The latest step in the Trump administration’s plan to shrink the federal government, released Wednesday, directs agencies to base their fiscal 2018 headcounts on a budget proposal that prescribes an almost 10-percent funding increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The Environmental Management (EM) office, which cleans up nuclear waste created by Cold […]

The latest step in the Trump administration’s plan to shrink the federal government, released Wednesday, directs agencies to base their fiscal 2018 headcounts on a budget proposal that prescribes an almost 10-percent funding increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The Environmental Management (EM) office, which cleans up nuclear waste created by Cold War-era […]

A $122 million waste disposal facility at the Savannah River Site is undergoing a readiness assessment and should be available for use about one year sooner than expected, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. The DOE site in South Carolina tweeted Tuesday that it is entering the final readiness assessment for Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) 6, the first 30-million […]

For the first time in more than three years, the Energy Department sent a shipment of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico for permanent disposal, the agency announced Monday. The shipment, from the Idaho National Laboratory, arrived in either the darkness of night or early morning, according to a […]

A 60-day public comment period opened Monday on Bechtel National’s plan to start installing pipes needed to clean up the Hanford Site’s low-activity liquid radioactive waste, according to regulatory filings made public yesterday. If granted, the modification to the company’s permit with Washington state would allow Bechtel to install underground plumbing to transfer low-activity waste between […]

WASHINGTON — As contractors and locals wait to learn how much more funding their Cold War nuclear-cleanup projects might get in fiscal 2018 under the Trump administration’s proposed budget increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, the head of that office on Wednesday focused ruminations about next year’s budget on work that hasn’t […]

It was not clear this week how a Canadian company’s multibillion-dollar offer to acquire engineering giant Atkins would affect the company’s work on the Energy Department’s legacy nuclear cleanup operations. The companies on Monday confirmed they were in talks for SNC-Lavalin Group of Montreal to acquire London-based Atkins for about $3.5 billion. The transaction would include […]

The Savannah River Site declared a potential inadequacy in the safety analysis (PISA) at a site storage facility on Feb. 24 after a lid came off a spent nuclear fuel (SNF) storage can. Department of Energy SRS Manager Jack Craig said in a March 29 report that the incident occurred in L Area, a facility […]

The president of the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council (HAMTC) is resigning, but says he plans to remain involved at the Hanford Site, focusing on health and safety training. Dave Molnaa will on April 16 leave the job he has held for 12 years at HAMTC, an umbrella group for 15 unions representing workers at […]

The chairman of a House panel with jurisdiction over the Energy Department met with Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Wednesday, less than a week after requesting an investigation into whether DOE’s Office of Environmental Management is spending money efficiently. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who holds the gavel on the House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee, was […]

Portage Inc. earned $1.1 million of its possible $1.5 million fiscal 2016 award fee as the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) contract. It received a “good” rating for the year, according to DOE’s latest evaluation, reflecting that grade in three performance areas: project management; tailings excavation, […]

The next technical services contract at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office in Lexington, Ky., is a five-year deal, including options, that has been set aside for eligible small-businesses, according to the draft solicitation the agency released recently. The contract is a follow-on to the roughly $50-million Portsmouth Environmental Technical Services contract held by Restoration […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could next week accept its first shipment of transuranic waste from an Energy Department nuclear cleanup site in more than three years, a source in New Mexico said this week. DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office projected in January that WIPP would begin taking in new shipments this month, though the agency […]

It was not clear Wednesday how a Canadian company’s multibillion-dollar offer to acquire engineering giant Atkins would affect the company’s work on the Energy Department’s legacy nuclear cleanup operations. SNC-Lavalin Group of Montreal on Monday confirmed it had offered some $3.5 billion to buy London-based Atkins. The company has a presence, among other places, at […]

WASHINGTON — As contractors and local stakeholders wait to learn how much more funding their Cold War nuclear-cleanup projects might get under the Trump administration’s proposed $500-million budget increase for the Energy Department office that manages this work, the head of that office focused ruminations about the fiscal 2018 federal budget here Wednesday on projects that […]

Four Republican lawmakers in the House, echoing remarks Energy Secretary Rick Perry made during his confirmation hearing in January, are wondering whether the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is spending money efficiently. To that end, the lawmakers have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether active Environmental Management cleanup programs should be put […]

The next technical services contract at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office in Lexington, Ky., is a five-year deal, including options, that has been set aside for eligible small-businesses, according to the draft solicitation the agency released recently. The contract is a follow-on to the roughly $50-million Portsmouth Environmental Technical Services contract held by Restoration […]

Portage Inc. earned $1.1 million of its possible $1.5 million fiscal 2016 award fee as the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) contract. It received an overall “good” rating for the year, reflecting that grade in three performance areas: project management; tailings excavation, haul, and disposal; and […]

Nearly a year after he made it, the Energy Department shot down a request from the mayor of Piketon, Ohio, to fund a third-party review of thousands of pages of documents that informed the agency’s decision to dispose of waste from uranium-enrichment cleanup at the Portsmouth Site at the facility. Piketon Mayor Billy Spencer lodged […]

  Legislation that would have made Hanford Site workers more likely to be awarded workers’ compensation has failed to pass out of a Washington state Senate committee. The deadline passed Wednesday for Senate committees to send House policy bills to the full Senate, under the Washington state Legislature’s 2017 session “cutoff calendar.” The state Senate […]

  Repairs of a key waste processing facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site remain on schedule for completion in 2017, but the work is taking a toll on short-term efforts to rid the facility of radioactive waste, officials reaffirmed Monday. In the interim, there is no liquid waste processing going on at […]

HPM Corp., the Hanford occupational medical services provider at Hanford, earned 91.7 percent of the fee available in fiscal 2016, according to a notification it received from the Department of Energy last week. It earned $302,610 of the $330,000 available, according to a summary prepared by DOE. The evaluation showed a small improvement over the […]

  The Hanford Site’s infamous McCluskey Room, the site of the 1976 explosion that injured worker Harold McCluskey, has been demolished. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. workers finished the project Wednesday, making it the first section of the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) to be taken down to slab on grade. “Completing demolition on this building […]

Nearly a year after he made it, the Energy Department shot down a request from the mayor of Piketon, Ohio, to fund a third-party review of thousands of pages of documents that informed the agency’s decision to dispose of waste from uranium-enrichment cleanup at the Portsmouth Site at the facility. Piketon Mayor Billy Spencer lodged […]

The White House’s proposed budget cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency would dramatically delay the end of nuclear cleanup at the Hanford Site, the head of Washington state’s nuclear cleanup oversight program told lawmakers Wednesday in a Capitol Hill hearing. Hanford has “historically stood out for the slow pace of cleanup,” and the pace would […]

Legislation that would have made Hanford Site workers more likely to be awarded workers’ compensation has failed to pass out of a Washington state Senate committee. The deadline passed Wednesday for Senate committees to send House policy bills to the full Senate, under the Washington state Legislature’s 2017 session “cutoff calendar.” The state Senate Committee […]

Repairs of a key waste processing facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site remain on schedule for completion in 2017, but the work is taking a toll on short-term efforts to rid the facility of radioactive waste, officials reaffirmed Monday. All liquid waste processing is on hold at SRS following the failure of Melter […]

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will host a hearing today on Cold War nuclear cleanup without any witnesses from the Energy Department office that manages national remediation of that waste. No one from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management is scheduled to testify at the hearing, according to the witness list on the committee’s website. Representatives […]