Office of Environmental Management (EM)

The Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons budget would increase year-over-year for 2023 but come up short against the Joe Biden administration’s request, under legislation a House subcommittee planned to debate on Tuesday. Meanwhile, under the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee’s recently unveiled bill, the budget for cleanup of shuttered nuclear-weapons production sites handled […]

Completion of the depleted uranium conversion program at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky could take three decades or more, an agency boss told the Paducah Site Citizens Advisory Board in Kentucky last week. Even before the depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) plants in Paducah and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio went offline in […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management had 115 onsite cases of COVID-19 in the seven-days ended Thursday, unchanged from the week before, according to a spokesperson for the nuclear cleanup office. That’s 21 more onsite cases than the 94 the Office of Environmental Management confirmed during the week ended June 2 and about […]

Hanford workers in Washington State who unsuccessfully challenged the site’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in federal district court are taking their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A group of 317 federal and contractor employees at the Hanford Site, three of whom say they have been fired from their jobs, filed […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico last week declined to provide a timeline for moving potentially combustible drums of stranded Los Alamos National Laboratory transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from a private site in Texas. Reinhard Knerr, who manages the DOE Carlsbad […]

The subcontractor in charge of sinking a new utility shaft at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., needs to fix potential safety hazards, the federal agency said in a recent assessment. While prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership and subcontractor Harrison Western-Shaft Sinkers have a “generally adequate construction safety program,” they […]

Six employees at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have settled their lawsuit contesting the COVID-19 vaccination policy implemented by prime contractor UT-Battelle, according to documents filed in federal court this week. U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley Jr. officially closed the books on the case in a single-page order Tuesday, citing […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 12 shipments during May, according to the public website for the disposal site. The dozen shipments in May 2022 are eight fewer than the 20 recorded in May 2021. So far during the calendar year 2022, the underground salt mine has received 67 […]

While construction is essentially complete, serious challenges remain to starting up the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant by the end of 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office. The Department of Energy still estimates the direct-feed low-activity waste (DFLAW) portion of the plant will begin turning some liquid, radioactive tank waste into glass […]

The Department of Energy expects priority work at the Moab uranium tailings site in Utah to be largely done within four years, officials with DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during a virtual briefing Wednesday. “We are getting close to closure,” at the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings project, said Russell McCallister, […]

The Department of Energy’s confirmatory run of its Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory has been paused once for about a day since its resumption May 23, a state official said Tuesday. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) “is currently operating at steady state conditions for the Confirmatory Run,” Kim Custer, a […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management appointed Betsy Forinash, a 30-year veteran of nuclear-cleanup and regulatory work, as the deputy assistant secretary for waste and materials management, the cleanup branch said Thursday. Forinash’s selection was announced by Candice Robertson, acting principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Environmental Management, or EM-2, in […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday awarded incumbent CAST Specialty Transportation a new five-year contract with a maximum $100-million value for haulage of defense-related transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. CAST won the new Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Transportation Services small business set-aside contract over three other proposals, the […]

The cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio has brought down the 56-acre X-326 Process Building, the agency said Thursday. The demolition of X-326 down to the slab is a big milestone for the DOE Office of Environmental Management and was telegraphed last week by speakers for the agency and contractor […]

While working on a new follow-on contract for haulage of defense-related transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., the Department of Energy has moved to keep incumbent CAST Specialty Transportation in place a little longer. The Carlsbad Transportation Services Contract held by the small business since June 2017 is now scheduled […]

The Department of Energy expects priority work at the Moab uranium tailings site in Utah to be largely done within four years, officials with DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during a virtual briefing Wednesday. “We are getting close to closure,” at the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings project, said Russell McCallister, […]

While construction is essentially complete, hurdles remain to starting up the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant by the end of 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office. The Department of Energy still estimates the direct-feed low-activity waste (DFLAW) portion of the plant will begin turning some liquid, radioactive tank waste into glass logs […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 12 shipments during May, according to the public website for the disposal site. The dozen shipments in May 2022 are eight fewer than the 20 recorded in May 2021. So far during the calendar year 2022, the underground salt mine has received 67 […]

The planned meeting this week of the Department of Energy’s Idaho Citizens Advisory Board has been called off, according to a recent notice on the panel’s website. “Due to limited participation in our upcoming June [15] meeting and tour, DOE has decided it best to cancel the meeting,” according to a May 26 notice for […]

Hanford workers in Washington State who unsuccessfully challenged the site’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in federal district court are taking their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A group of 317 federal and contractor employees at the Hanford Site, three of whom say they have been fired from their jobs, filed […]

Six employees at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have agreed to settle their lawsuit contesting the COVID-19 vaccination policy implemented by prime contractor UT-Battelle, according to a document filed in federal court Monday. In a one-page “mediator’s report to the court” attorney Chadwick Hatmaker of the Knoxville law firm Woolf-McClane, […]

The subcontractor in charge of sinking a new utility shaft at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., needs to fix potential safety hazards, the federal agency said in a recent assessment. While prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership and subcontractor Harrison Western-Shaft Sinkers have a “generally adequate construction safety program,” they […]

At least some of the 300 employees involved with an unsuccessful federal court challenge to the COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state could take their case to the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals, a lawyer working with the group said last week. “We plan to appeal” a defeat […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico last week declined to provide a timeline for moving potentially combustible drums of stranded Los Alamos National Laboratory transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from a private site in Texas. Reinhard Knerr, who manages the DOE Carlsbad […]

A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committee is neutral on whether the Department of Energy should lead any revived federal research effort on potential health impacts of low-dose radiation, the head of the panel, said Friday. Tribal communities and atomic workers “generally do not support” a DOE-run low-dose radiation program, Joe Gray, professor […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — With the promise of a contamination-free underground panel to work in, and looming infrastructure upgrades, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico could triple the number of waste shipments it takes in by 2024, compared with 2021, a federal official said Thursday. Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) crews should finish filling […]

Incumbent small business Inalab Consulting of Fairfax, Va., has been awarded a new five-year contract worth up to $4 million from the Department of Energy to provide support services to an Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center facility in Denver. The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract to Inalab, small-disadvantaged business under the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Program, […]

SUMMERLIN, Nev. — The Department of Energy’s $7.6 billion Office of Environmental Management is cleaning up nuclear hazards from Washington state to New York state while dealing with a “silver tsunami,” Jay Mullis, a top executive at the remediation branch, said here Wednesday at the Radwaste Summit. Mullis, currently the acting associate principal deputy assistant […]

A House Armed Services Committee panel wants the Government Accountability Office to scrutinize quality assurance steps taken by the Depart of Energy’s $7.6-billion nuclear cleanup office, according to a House subcommittee draft  of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2023. The House Armed Services’ strategic forces , subcommittee chaired by Rep. Jim Cooper, (D-Tenn.) […]

U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thompson Dietz appears unlikely to set an end date for Swift & Staley’s tenure as landlord of the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, based on an online court filing last week. The June 2 decision, filed under seal but described in the online docket for the Court […]