Office of Environmental Management (EM)

A federal court was wrong in June 2023 to block the Department of Energy’s award of a $45-billion liquid waste contract, the BWX Technologies-led team that won the work argued this week. Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn’s decision to block the DOE’s April 2023 issuance of the contract to Hanford Tank Operations and Closure […]

There are lots of new workers joining the nuclear industry these days, but Baltimore-based Constellation Energy has perhaps the only one to list “former Miss America” on her resume. Constellation announced in a Monday press release it hired former Miss America Grace Stanke as a full-time employee working as both an engineer and a spokesperson […]

There are no reports of damage at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state from a magnitude 2.8 earthquake that hit an area near on Saturday, an agency spokesperson said this week.  The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake hit about 2.5 miles south of Richland, Wash., which is itself about 15 […]

The Department of Energy prime for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has hired a mine company to refurbish a large underground salt bin this year. Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, which runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for DOE, has retained Cementation, a mine development company with offices in Utah and […]

The Department of Energy weapons complex might consider adopting safety practices other agencies use to reduce on-the-job contractor accidents and learn from such incidents, according to a new report. That’s a key takeaway included in a contractor safety analysis for fiscal years 2019 through 2023 done by DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments. The agency’s investigative […]

A federal court was wrong in June 2023 to block the Department of Energy’s award of a $45-billion liquid waste contract, the BWX Technologies-led team that won the work argued this week. Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn’s decision to block the DOE’s April 2023 issuance of the contract to Hanford Tank Operations and Closure […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) who already chairs a key House Appropriations Committee panel affecting the Department of Energy is also picking up a seat on a defense purse strings subcommittee. Fleischmann has been appointed by House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole  (R-Okla.) to serve on the Defense Subcommittee, the Tennessee lawmaker said in an April […]

The South Carolina agency charged with environmental monitoring of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., will split into two separate organizations on July 1. Under a measure passed in 2023 by the state legislature, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) is becoming two separate agencies: the South […]

The Department of Energy contractor running the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina is looking for expressions of interest from Minority Serving Institutions for nuclear cleanup research and development. Battelle Savannah River Alliance published the expressions of interest notice Monday in the System for Award Management. The joint venture between Battelle and several regional […]

A magnitude 2.8 earthquake hit an area near the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington State on Saturday, according to federal data. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake hit about 2.5 miles south of Richland, Wash., which is itself about 15 miles south by road from Hanford’s southern gate. It was a […]

A New Mexico resident is suing the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories for slander, defamation, violation of the Freedom of Information Act and — causing the breakup of his 28-year marriage. William Gardner, who is representing himself, filed the action against DOE and Sandia last month. Gardner claims DOE falsely accused him of criminal […]

Republican Jerrod Sessler, who is again mounting a primary challenge to Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), picked up an expected albeit influential endorsement Friday from former president and presumptive GOP 2024 presidential nominee Donald Trump. Newhouse, who has used his House Appropriations Committee post to push for greater nuclear cleanup funding for the Department of Energy’s […]

The Department of Energy has approved its latest jumbo-sized saltstone disposal unit for operation at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the agency said Tuesday. Saltstone Disposal Unit 9 (SDU 9) is the fourth such mega unit built at Savannah River to hold up to 33 million gallons of saltstone, DOE said in a […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, coming out of a maintenance outage, received 23 shipments of transuranic waste during the last half of March, according to online data. Because of the extended maintenance outage, which kept the underground salt mine offline all of February, shipment only resumed March 15. The […]

Federal and state agencies could soon provide details about a new conceptual agreement for cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), said Tuesday. Cantwell spoke during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on DOE’s fiscal 2025 budget request. The conceptual agreement, announced in May 2023, […]

Strategic Management Solutions, a small contractor for the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration, has been acquired by a Louisiana-based private equity management firm led by a former Shaw Group executive. The purchase of Strategic Management Solutions, LLC (SMSI) was announced Tuesday in a press release by Bernhard Capital Partners. The buyer […]

Local officials in Western Kentucky said Wednesday the Department of Energy is picking up its remaining two-year option on its Deactivation and Remediation Contract with Jacobs-led Four River Nuclear Partnership at the Paducah Site. Four Rivers, a joint venture that also includes Fluor and BWX Technologies, currently has a $1.7-billion contract that started in June […]

An expert review team led by Inés Triay, a former head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch, hopes to have most of its research done by this fall on a chromium plume at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. “We think we can finish this endeavor by the end of the […]

The Department of Energy has issued its final request for qualifications for clean energy projects on 9,000 acres of land above its underground disposal site for transuranic waste in New Mexico. Responses to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) request for qualifications for carbon-free energy projects of at least 200 megawatts are due by 11:59 […]

The Department of Energy Thursday published its justification to extend the incumbent decommissioning contractor at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio until Sept. 30. The move to extend Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth six months from April 1 to Sept. 30 was expected. The agency announced its intention just after Christmas. DOE published its justification for extending the incumbent […]

Local officials in Western Kentucky said Wednesday the Department of Energy is picking up its remaining two-year option on its Deactivation and Remediation Contract with Jacobs-led Four River Nuclear Partnership at the Paducah Site. Four Rivers, a joint venture that also includes Fluor and BWX Technologies, currently has a $1.7-billion contract that started in June […]

The Department of Energy has approved its latest jumbo-sized saltstone disposal unit for operation at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the agency said Tuesday. Saltstone Disposal Unit 9 (SDU 9) is the fourth such mega unit built at Savannah River to hold up to 33 million gallons of saltstone, DOE said in a […]

Federal and state agencies could soon provide details about a new conceptual agreement for cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), said Tuesday. Cantwell spoke during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on DOE’s fiscal 2025 budget request. The conceptual agreement, announced in May 2023, […]

The Department of Energy announced April 11 in a Federal Register notice it is renewing the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board for two more years. The board, set up under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, offers local advice on nuclear cleanup-related issues to DOE’s assistant secretary for environmental management. The renewal was effective April 8, […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, coming out of a maintenance outage, received 23 shipments of transuranic waste during the last half of March, according to online data. Because of the extended maintenance outage, which kept the underground salt mine offline all of February, shipment only resumed March 15. The […]

Inés Triay, one-time head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch, will discuss the hexavalent chromium plume at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico this week. Triay, currently interim dean of the College of Engineering and Computing at Florida International University, is leading an expert review team on the longstanding chromium plume […]

The Department of Energy plans to use Aptim, one of nine companies selected in a national solicitation in 2020, as its decommissioning and demolition contractor for Building 281 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. DOE published a justification for not doing additional competitive bidding for the work, worth up to $22.1 million, in […]

The Department of Energy’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is asking the New Mexico Environment Department for certain permit modifications, including approval of four new shielded containers suitable for carrying remote-handled transuranic waste. DOE and Bechtel’s Salado Isolation Mining Contractors filed the Hazardous Waste Facility Permit modification document with the state March […]

The Department of Energy is giving bidders on the $2.9-billion Portsmouth / Paducah Project Office (PPPO) Operations and Site Mission Support contract until April 17 to tweak their proposals, sources tell Exchange Monitor. The contract will cover running depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion plants in Ohio and Kentucky, among other things. April 17 is the deadline […]

In a legal brief filed in federal court, Department of Energy contractors said a Pike County, Ohio man waited too long, 15 years after being diagnosed with cancer, and more than four years after a local school closed, to allege the contractors contaminated the area around the Portsmouth Site. Plaintiff Joshua Shaw blames contractors at […]