Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The Department of Energy said this week its nuclear cleanup branch has now removed radioactive waste from 24 of its single-shell tanks at the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash. It has only taken about seven months for DOE’s BWXT-led contractor, Hanford Tank Waste Operations and Closure (H2C), to move 79,000 gallons of waste from Single-Shell […]

The Department of Energy said this week its nuclear cleanup branch has now removed radioactive waste from 24 of its single-shell tanks at the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash. It has only taken about seven months for DOE’s BWXT-led contractor, Hanford Tank Waste Operations and Closure (H2C), to move 79,000 gallons of waste from Single-Shell […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management plans to keep on Amentum-led Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership as the remediation contractor at the Paducah Site in Kentucky through September 2030. In an online notice of intent posted this week, DOE’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office said it plans to modify the existing Deactivation and Remediation contract to […]

Smoke from regional wildfires has the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Richland, Wash., facing an air quality alert until further notice. The National Weather Service forecast for the region says an air quality alert remains in effect “until further notices” for Kennewick, Pasco and Richland as well as the counties that surround the DOE […]

Department of Energy management at the Hanford Site is reportedly asking the City of Richland, Wash., to annex more than 740 acres of land at the federal nuclear installation. The Tri-City Herald newspaper reported Sunday that DOE is asking Richland to annex multiple parcels of land along the city’s northern border. If ultimately approved by […]

After being out of service about two months to fix problems with underground hoists, the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) resumed taking shipments of defense-related transuranic waste in July, according to publicly-available data. According to DOE’s public shipment website for WIPP, a couple of waste shipments from the Los Alamos National Laboratory […]

The federal government has concluded certain tank farm waste in the 200 West Area of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Richland, Wash., can be treated as low-level radioactive waste. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said in a Friday press release that a Waste Incidental to Reprocessing (WIR) determination has been made for treated waste […]

The Donald Trump White House has drafted a memo to Congress, pushing for legislation to remove Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the sole site for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste. The 1987 amendments of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act established Yucca Mountain as the sole repository for high-level waste. However, plans for Yucca were […]

With nuclear cleanup in the United States expected to take decades and cost over $640 billion, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Department of Energy should study international friends more to see how things might be done better. That is the gist of a GAO report made public this week. “We looked at how […]

For the second time in two weeks, the Department of Energy unveiled plans for a new data center at one of its nuclear installations, this one at the Paducah Site in Western Kentucky. In a Wednesday morning news release, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said DOE is teaming up with several energy organizations to help […]

Targets in the End State Contract Model the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office started using in fiscal 2020 are often ill-defined and the program needs better record-keeping and oversight, a congressional watchdog said this week. Those are among the takeaways from a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report publicly released Wednesday on the DOE Office […]

A joint venture between Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) and BWX Technologies said Tuesday it is meeting its goals for moving legacy transuranic waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. “This fiscal year has been N3B’s most productive year in reducing legacy transuranic […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Field Office in Richland, Wash., plans to award a no-bid contract to the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Academy to hold a four-day process safety “boot camp,” according to a recent online procurement notice. In the notice, the Academy is called “the only responsible source that can provide the management […]

Targets in the End State Contract Model the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office started using in fiscal 2020 are often ill-defined and the program needs better record-keeping and oversight, a congressional watchdog said this week. Those are among the takeaways from a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report publicly released Wednesday on the DOE Office […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Field Office in Richland, Wash., plans to award a no-bid contract to the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Academy to hold a four-day process safety “boot camp,” according to a recent online procurement notice. In the notice, the Academy is called “the only responsible source that can provide the management […]

For the second time in two weeks, the Department of Energy unveiled plans for a new data center at one of its nuclear installations, this one at the Paducah Site in Western Kentucky. In a Wednesday morning news release, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said DOE is teaming up with several energy organizations to help […]

A joint venture between Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) and BWX Technologies said Tuesday it is meeting its goals for moving legacy transuranic waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M. “This fiscal year has been N3B’s most productive year in reducing legacy transuranic […]

With a flammable gas analysis complete, the Department of Energy said Tuesday the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, S.C., could soon be ready to resume shipments of the more radioactive type of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. SRS can soon resume shipping drums of remote-handled transuranic waste […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit this week denied a challenge brought by Beyond Nuclear and the Sierra Club to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) process for reviewing reactor license renewals. “Petitioners argue that the commission did not adequately consider how aging components and climate change affect the risk of […]

About $190 million worth of work remains at the Department of Energy’s Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project at Moab, Utah, bringing the final tab to about $1.16 billion, a congressional watchdog said earlier this month. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a July 15 report the Moab cleanup has already cost $970 million […]

The city of Oak Ridge, Tenn. is still looking for a replacement site for a municipal airport after the original location was tapped for nuclear industry expansion, City Manager Randy Hemann told Exchange Monitor Thursday. In an emailed statement with the Monitor, Hemann said the city is still engaged in considering alternate sites that “meet […]

For now at least, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has suspended publication of many of the congressional watchdog’s routine reports on safety and operations at Department of Energy nuclear sites.   “The DNFSB is not currently posting technical documents, such as resident inspector weekly, site monthly and other technical reports, while the board works […]

The BWX Technologies-led prime cleanup contractor for the West Valley Demonstration Project near Buffalo, N.Y., is holding an industry day July 30 for vendors that have expressed an interest in the Secant Pile Wall construction project. West Valley Cleanup Alliance (WVCA) recently issued a request for information (RFI) for subcontractors interested in doing the work […]

An updated plan for the Savannah River Site liquid waste mission pushes completion out to 2041 although 2037 is still possible, but would require increases in federal funding, according to environmental contractor Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC).  Steve Howell, a senior vice president for the contractor, said Tuesday during an SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Materials that used to be considered purely radioactive waste are increasingly being recycled into usable products for everything from medical treatments to advanced nuclear reactors, federal officials said last week. That was the word July 15 from the Department of Energy’s Under-Secretary for Science Dario Gil along with DOE Environmental Management (EM) […]

July 30 is the deadline for interested parties to file comments for the Department of Energy’s draft request for proposals (RFP) for the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash. The 70,000-square-foot facility, which recently turned 75, analyzes highly-radioactive samples from Hanford tank waste. It is currently run by Navarro-ATL under a $636-million […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch is requesting feedback from industry on potential reuse of roughly 530,000 gallons of heavy water stored at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) posted a request for information (RFI) July 21 in the Federal Register. “The purpose of this RFI is […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch is requesting feedback from industry on potential reuse of roughly 530,000 gallons of heavy water stored at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) posted a request for information (RFI) July 21 in the Federal Register. “The purpose of this RFI is […]

July 30 is the deadline for interested parties to file comments for the Department of Energy’s draft request for proposals (RFP) for the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash. The 70,000-square-foot facility, which recently turned 75, analyzes highly-radioactive samples from Hanford tank waste. It is currently run by Navarro-ATL under a $636-million […]

So far in 2026, emergency crews from the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky have responded to 20 requests for assistance from a volunteer fire department in neighboring McCracken County, DOE said Tuesday. In 2025 the Paducah Site helped out on 115 requests from the West McCracken Fire Department under a mutual aid agreement […]