Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The Department of Energy last week gave feedback to contractors on its expectations for a national small business procurement for nuclear cleanup, a solicitation where bids are now due July 10. In the latest batch of questions and answers for the Small Business Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning and Removal procurement, DOE’s cleanup office fielded inquiries on […]

Brad Smith has replaced Kim Lebak as president and general manager of the legacy waste cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lebak is heading back to Huntington Ingalls Industries, the corporate parent of the team’s lead partner. Lebak shared the news herself in letters on June 5 and June […]

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Grouting low-level radioactive waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, fully staffing a federal safety watchdog and other topics generated attention here Thursday at an annual meeting of a federal contractors group Thursday. The DOE’s acting head of the Office of Environmental Management, William (Ike) White told the Energy […]

Brad Smith has replaced Kim Lebak as president and general manager of the legacy waste cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lebak is heading back to Huntington Ingalls Industries, the corporate parent of the team’s lead partner. Lebak shared the news herself in letters on June 5 and June […]

While it is hardly a secret that Department of Energy weapons complex sites are badly in need of fresh blood to compensate for a wave of retirements, a recent analysis by a contractor group quantifies the scope of the situation. The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG), which holds its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., later […]

The Department of Energy last week gave feedback to contractors on its expectations for a national small business procurement for nuclear cleanup, a solicitation where bids are now due July 10. In the latest batch of questions and answers for the Small Business Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning and Removal procurement, DOE’s cleanup office fielded inquiries on […]

The Department of Energy favors continued reliance on Mother Nature, with monitoring and other steps, to clean up groundwater within large chunks of the former uranium enrichment property at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, a federal advisory committee heard last Wednesday. Largely leaving the contamination alone and checking it regularly to “attenuate” or reduce […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 28 shipments of transuranic waste during May, according to its website. Twenty shipments during the month came from the Idaho National Laboratory, four from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, three from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and one […]

Wrap Up:WCS faces 2024 permit renewal; experts study nuke war’s enviro impact; DOE awards $2M grant to Paducah chamber Waste Control Specialists, the commercial radioactive waste storage and disposal site in Andrews County, Texas, will be up for permit renewal later this year, a state regulator told Exchange Monitor’s Radwaste Summit 2.0 last week in […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has not been aggressive enough in cleaning up a hexavalent chromium plume within the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the head of the New Mexico Environment Department said last week. DOE and its contractors “have denied New Mexicans and tribal members timely and effective clean-up of hexavalent chromium […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico was among numerous federal entities that suffered a data breach Thursday as part of an international cyber hack involving the “”MOVEit” software. “Upon learning that records from two DOE entities were compromised in the global cyberattack on the file-sharing software MOVEit Transfer, DOE took […]

A House Appropriations subcommittee led by a lawmaker with a local interest in the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee on Thursday voted to keep nuclear cleanup spending roughly $8.3 billion in fiscal 2024, sending the measure onto the full committee. The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Chuck […]

Christopher Leichtweis, the president and CEO of Idaho Falls-based North Wind Group, plans to leave the company by the end of the year, the company announced Tuesday. Leichtweis, who has led the Department of Energy contractor since 2013, will remain on through Dec. 31, “to ensure a smooth and orderly transition,” North Wind said in […]

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control could start taking public comments as early as this fall on groundwater cleanup for the Department of Energy’s area of the sprawling Santa Susana Field Laboratory, according to a report released Thursday. The California Agency on Thursday issued its long-awaited Final Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for the 2,850-acre […]

One major COVID-19-related lawsuit in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex ended this week when an appeals court ruled there was nothing much to resolve while another, on the other side of the country, is restarting.  A case involving DOE’s COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Hanford Site in Washington state is effectively over, a panel […]

The Department of Energy’s $45-billion liquid waste contract awarded in April for the Hanford Site in Washington state “was improper and is set aside,” a federal judge said in a public one-page document Tuesday. “Performance of the contract is enjoined,” U.S.  Court of Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn said of the Integrated Tanks Contract […]

A House Appropriations panel wants to give the federal government’s independent safety watchdog for nuclear weapon sites almost as much money as the White House requested, bill published this week show. On Thursday, the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee chaired by Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn), passed a draft budget bill that would provide […]

An Idaho county this week urged a federal judge to reject the federal governent’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit against the Department of Energy over ongoing use of the Idaho National Laboratory as a repository for spent nuclear fuel. Butte County, which says DOE should shoulder more of the social and economic impact of decades […]

A House Appropriations panel led by a lawmaker with a local interest in the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee would keep nuclear cleanup spending roughly $8.3 billion in fiscal 2024, according to a draft budget bill released Wednesday. That is about flat compared with the 2023 appropriation, and while numbers don’t change […]

Christopher Leichtweis, the president and CEO of Idaho Falls-based North Wind Group, plans to leave the company by the end of the year, the company announced Tuesday. Leichtweis, who has led the Department of Energy contractor since 2013, will remain on through Dec. 31, “to ensure a smooth and orderly transition,” North Wind said in […]

The Department of Energy’s $45-billion liquid waste contract awarded in April for the Hanford Site in Washington state “was improper and is set aside,” a federal judge said in a public one-page document Tuesday. “Performance of the contract is enjoined,” U.S.  Court of Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn said of the Integrated Tanks Contract […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has not been aggressive enough in cleaning up a hexavalent chromium plume within the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the head of the New Mexico Environment Department said last week. DOE and its contractors “have denied New Mexicans and tribal members timely and effective clean-up of hexavalent chromium […]

A federal judge on Monday abruptly dismissed a losing bidder’s lawsuit over a $45-billion Department of Energy contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. According to an online notice, an “order of dismissal” was issued under seal by U.S.  Court of Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn in a bid protest brought by an […]

A panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said last week it need not hear oral arguments in order to make a ruling in a case involving the Department of Energy’s COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “The court is of the unanimous opinion that […]

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control could start taking public comments as early as this fall on groundwater cleanup for the Department of Energy’s area of the sprawling Santa Susana Field Laboratory, according to a report released Thursday. The California Agency on Thursday issued its long-awaited Final Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for the 2,850-acre […]

The Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce, which takes an active interest in the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in McCracken County, Ky., has been awarded a $2-million grant to study future use of the agency’s gaseous diffusion plant. The $2-million financial assistance act, consistent with the fiscal 2023 federal budget, will go toward community studies […]

After being down for a while last week for upkeep on a major component, a $1.4-billion facility to treat sodium-bearing waste at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is back in operation, an agency spokesperson said by email this week. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) “continues to process 100% rad waste,” the DOE […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad, N.M., field office expects the major new ventilation system for the transuranic waste disposal site could start up sometime in 2024. “Preliminary commissioning” work on the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System should start this calendar year, said Mark Bollinger, who heads the Carlsbad Field […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — By June 30, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office expects to provide the Texas attorney general with a “detailed schedule” for retrieving boxes of transuranic waste stranded at a private disposal site in Andrews County for nearly a decade. In a May 10 letter to Phillip Ledbetter, managing enforcement lawyer with […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted one-time approval for the Department of Energy to return a problem container of transuranic waste with expired paperwork to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant parking lot in New Mexico. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorized the return in a June 2 letter […]