Office of Environmental Management (EM)

A few days before Christmas, the Department of Energy, together with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed to the broad framework for completing radioactive tank waste cleanup at the Savannah River Site. The primary goal of the revised Federal Facility Agreement, announced Tuesday, is to […]

The Department of Energy and state and federal regulators agreed that the agency will finish cleaning up most liquid waste at the former plutonium production site near the Georgia line by 2037, the agency and the site’s prime contractor announced Tuesday morning. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, DOE and the U.S. […]

Following a December court decision, the Department of Energy is officially canceling the solicitation that resulted in incumbent Swift & Staley winning — and then eventually losing — a new set-aside contract two years earlier for landlord services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. “DOE has determined that canceling this solicitation is in the best […]

After several years of planning, the initial discard of uranium solution from the new Accelerated Basin De-inventory program at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., was successfully transferred to the SRS liquid waste program from the H Canyon Chemical Separations Facility, the Department of Energy said last week. The newly implemented Accelerated Basin De-inventory […]

The Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management has issued stopgap extensions to avoid lapses in nuclear cleanup work this week at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and treatment of a uranium enrichment byproduct there, and at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth and Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services will both receive contract extensions of […]

The Department of Energy is giving interested bidders two extra weeks to submit proposals for the new Occupational Medical Contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to a procurement notice published this week. Response to the partial request for proposals that came out last month are now due April 24 rather than the […]

The Department of Energy considers 2,000 gallons of tank waste earmarked for the test-bed initiative at the Hanford Site in Washington state to be low-level radioactive waste and not high-level waste, the agency wrote in a Federal Register notice published this week. The notice, officially the final Waste Incidental to Reprocessing Determination, which is now […]

New Mexico’s public misgivings about nuclear waste is worrisome in Washington state where the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site is expected to become a big shipper to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a few years and finish around 2050, a Hanford community representative said this week. “There is one item that is hitting our […]

The Department of Energy said this week crews have fixed the cause of the recent leak at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory and should start running the facility soon with a mixture of 90% simulant and 10% radioactive sodium-bearing waste. Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) crews on Tuesday “completed key […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After a congressional hearing Thursday, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said the Department of Energy thinks the startup of the waste vitrification plant at the Hanford Site in Washington will not slip too much further into the future. “I think we have a handle on it,” Granholm told the Monitor about big […]

The procurement center for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental holds its first so-called “Reverse Industry Day,” online in May, a move sought by the Government Accountability Office. The virtual Reverse Industry Day is scheduled for 1 p.m. Eastern Time on May 4, according to a Monday notice from the DOE Environmental Management Consolidated […]

A group of current and former Department of Energy contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio are again targets of a federal lawsuit, this one filed by a plaintiff suffering from cancer who attended a now-shuttered middle school near the former gaseous diffusion plant. Christian Rose, diagnosed in June with Burkitt Lymphoma, a cancer of […]

The Department of Energy has a nickname: “the Department of Everything,” the acting DOE nuclear cleanup boss told weapons complex citizen advisory board chairs this week.   The DOE Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White retold the joke during a Washington, D.C., meeting Tuesday. The description applies to an agency involved in issues […]

The Department of Energy could spend $20 million on tearing down contaminated old facilities at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California during fiscal 2024, or about $15 million less than what Congress approved for that purpose in fiscal 2023, according to the White House budget justification out last week. The DOE Office of Environmental […]

Bechtel National earned more than $6.5 million, or 83% of its total potential fee, for Department of Energy work in 2022 on the long-anticipated Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Overall, the company earned $6.53 million out of a potential $7.87 million in fee for the calendar year ended […]

The 1,200 or so employees at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will almost-certainly be retired by the time the Hanford Site in Washington state is fully cleaned up, based upon the budget request issued last week by the White House. The acting boss for Environment Management, said last fall the nuclear cleanup […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After a congressional hearing Thursday, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said the Department of Energy thinks the startup of the waste vitrification plant at the Hanford Site in Washington will not slip too much further into the future. “I think we have a handle on it,” Granholm told the Monitor about big […]

A group of current and former Department of Energy contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio are again targets of a federal lawsuit, this one filed by a plaintiff suffering from cancer who attended a now-shuttered middle school near the former gaseous diffusion plant. Christian Rose, diagnosed in June with Burkitt Lymphoma, a cancer of […]

The Department of Energy is giving interested bidders two extra weeks to submit proposals for the new Occupational Medical Contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to a procurement notice published Monday. Response to the partial request for proposals that came out last month are now due April 24 rather than the earlier […]

The Department of Energy has a nickname: “the Department of Everything,” the acting DOE nuclear cleanup boss told weapons complex citizen advisory board chairs Tuesday.   The DOE Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White retold the joke during a Washington, D.C., meeting. The description applies to an agency involved in issues ranging from […]

New Mexico’s public misgivings about nuclear waste is worrisome in Washington state where the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site is expected to become a big shipper to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a few years and finish around 2050, a Hanford community representative said Tuesday. “There is one item that is hitting our screen […]

Bechtel National earned more than $6.5 million, or 83% of its total potential fee, for Department of Energy work in 2022 on the long-anticipated Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Overall, the company earned $6.53 million out of a potential $7.87 million in fee for the calendar year ended […]

The procurement center for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental holds its first so-called “Reverse Industry Day,” online in May, a move sought by the Government Accountability Office. The virtual Reverse Industry Day is scheduled for 1 p.m. Eastern Time on May 4, according to a Monday notice from the DOE Environmental Management Consolidated […]

The Department of Energy considers 2,000 gallons of tank waste earmarked for the test-bed initiative at the Hanford Site in Washington state to be low-level radioactive waste and not high-level waste, the agency wrote in a Federal Register notice published Monday morning. The notice, officially the final Waste Incidental to Reprocessing Determination, which is now […]

The 1,200 or so employees at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will almost-certainly be retired by the time the Hanford Site in Washington state is fully cleaned up, based upon the budget request issued last week by the White House. The acting boss for Environment Management, said last fall the nuclear cleanup […]

The Department of Energy could spend $20 million on tearing down contaminated old facilities at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California during fiscal 2024, or about $15 million less than what Congress approved for that purpose in fiscal 2023, according to the White House budget justification out last week. The DOE Office of Environmental […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., are roughly halfway through sinking a new underground utility shaft, site managers said Thursday. Shaft-sinking crews recently surpassed the midway point at 1,076-feet deep, the DOE and its new prime contractor, Bechtel affiliate Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, said in a March 9 […]

Work continues on transfer of the Savannah River Site landlord authority to the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, the top cleanup fed at the South Carolina complex told a DOE advisory panel this week. A joint team of DOE Office of Environmental Management and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) representatives should issue […]

A contractor for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has, after an extended outage, restarted a cesium pretreatment pilot project critical to waste solidification at the site, the DOE said this week. Tank operations manager Washington River Protection Solutions has resumed operation of the Tank-Side Cesium Removal System (TSCR) at Hanford, DOE […]

Bills pending before the South Carolina legislature could split the state regulator for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken into two separate organizations, a state agency official told the Citizens Advisory Board for the federal complex Monday. Susan Fulmer, manager of federal remediation for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental […]