Savannah River Site

For the second time in two years, the Department of Energy is looking at shipping certain radioactive waste, now classified as high-level, from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to a commercial disposal site out of state. The DOE said in a Wednesday press release it will issue a Federal Register notice within days […]

Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation, the liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, took home almost $64 million or 98% of its total potential fee for work done over an 18-month period ending Sept. 30, 2020. The contractor was rated “very good” on its subjective fee as determined by […]

As of this morning, the Government Accountability Office website lists no bid protests filed yet for the Department of Energy’s Dec. 22 award of a potential 10-year, $3.8 billion Savannah River National Laboratory contract to a Battelle-owned team. Accounting for holidays and weekends, today marks 10 days since DOE announced the award. Losing bidders have […]

As of close of business Wednesday, nuclear cleanup sites managed by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management had 381 active cases of COVID-19 scattered across its workforce, a spokesperson for the office said this week. The figure, while still high, is down 50 from the 431 active cases cited on Dec.31. As for […]

As part of the omnibus spending package signed Dec. 27 by President Donald Trump, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will receive almost $7.6 billion for fiscal 2021, which is $131 million above its funding level for the 2020 budget year that ended Sept. 30, 2020. It is also about 22% more than […]

In a long-awaited report published this week, the Department of Energy estimated it could save up to $230 billion by lowering the classification level of certain radioactive waste from nuclear-weapons production — and while some neighbors of nuclear-cleanup sites welcomed the idea, it remained far from certain that Congress will give the agency clear legal […]

Lowering the hazard classification of some defense-nuclear waste could save the Department of Energy more than $200 billion in disposal costs, the agency told Congress in a report three years in the making. Most of the potential savings, between roughly $70 billion and $200 billion, would come from reclassifying low-activity waste at the Hanford West […]

Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation, the liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, took home almost $64 million or 98% of its total potential fee for work done over an 18-month period ending Sept. 30, 2020. The contractor was rated “very good” on its subjective fee as determined by […]

As of this morning, the Government Accountability Office website lists no bid protests filed yet for the Department of Energy’s Dec. 22 award of a potential 10-year, $3.8 billion Savannah River National Laboratory contract to a Battelle-owned team. Accounting for holidays and weekends, this coming Friday will mark 10 days since DOE announced the award. […]

The Department of Energy said Monday that Centerra, the paramilitary security contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, is taking home roughly 98% of its potential $6.73 million in fee for the 12 months ended Oct. 7. Centerra-Savannah River Site will pocket $6.58 million for providing an armed and uniformed security force for […]

A single-owner team led by Battelle Memorial Institute will manage the Savannah River National Laboratory for up to 10 years under a potentially $3.8 billion contract announced Tuesday by the Department of Energy. Battelle Savannah River Alliance, LLC (BSRA), Columbus, Ohio, beat out three other bidders for the cost-plus-award-fee contract just awarded by DOE’s Environmental […]

House Armed Services chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) again railed against the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to turn Savannah River into a plutonium pit factory, saying the “idiotic” and “dangerous,” plan might leave the U.S. without the means to modernize its nuclear weapons on time and on budget. “I am highly skeptical of the level […]

While the coronavirus pandemic affected nuclear cleanup at the Department of Energy in ways great and small, it did not slow down the acquisition process in 2020, when the Environmental Management Office awarded about $31 billion worth of new cleanup contracts. That includes $17 billion of contracts during the 2020 calendar year and some $14 […]

Concerns about the surging COVID-19 pandemic in New Mexico led the Department of Energy to reduce on-site staffing and slow certain operations at both the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, according to recent documents published by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  At Los Alamos, operations are affected for both […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is preparing a final environmental review for its new plutonium disposal program at the Savannah River Site, but not the thorough review a National Academies panel recommended earlier this year, the agency announced Wednesday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency published its notice of intent to do an […]

House Armed Services chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) again railed against the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to turn Savannah River into a plutonium pit factory, saying the “idiotic” and “dangerous,” plan might leave the U.S. without the means to modernize its nuclear weapons on time and on budget. “I am highly skeptical of the level […]

As of this week, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has seen 2,009 members of its workforce contract COVID-19 so far in 2020. The current number of federal and contractor workers infected with the coronavirus is 477, a spokesperson for Environmental Management (EM) said Thursday. At the Hanford Site in Washington state, largest […]

Fluor, Irving, Texas, reported a dip in total revenue for the 2020 third quarter, even as its government sector enjoyed higher profits in the three months ended Sept. 30. Fluor’s third-quarter revenue was $3.8 billion, down from $4.6 billion during the same quarter in 2019, according to the release. Net earnings from continuing operations attributable […]

The total number of active cases of COVID-19 at nuclear cleanup sites overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management remained high this week at 282, which is still lower than the 298 active cases during Thanksgiving week, a spokesperson said Thursday.  Active, reported cases were in the double digits as recently as […]

DOE could soon award the first standalone management and operations contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory, the manager of the DOE Savannah River Site office said this week. In addition to announcing the new stand-alone contractor for management of the laboratory, which is focused on nuclear-cleanup science and technology, DOE could announce the next […]

The top boss for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina said Monday that major contractor awards could be made soon and there have been “somewhere north of 700” total confirmed cases of the coronavirus at the complex so far. “We continue to get COVID cases […]

The management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico learned of 13 new cases of COVID-19 at the disposal facility just prior to Thanksgiving. Nuclear Waste Partnership, DOE’s prime contractor at the transuranic waste disposal site, reported the latest set of infections in a press release last […]

Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.), whose district includes Augusta, a major bedroom community for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in neighboring South Carolina, has tested positive for the coronavirus. “I have been undergoing regular COVID-19 testing and learned today that I have tested positive for COVID-19,” Allen said in a press release posted on […]

The Government Accountability Office took a victory lap for a series of investigations it made into the now-cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., saying the move saved some $13 billion. “Construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility [MFFF], initially estimated to cost about $4.8 billion, was […]

The Government Accountability Office took a victory lap for a series of investigations it made into the now-cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., saying the move saved some $13 billion. The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility was initially forecast to cost $4.8 billion, but “[i]n response to […]

With more than 333,000 ballots cast in California’s 25th congressional district, incumbent Mike Garcia (R) is clinging to a lead of 104 votes over Christy Smith (D) as of Monday, according to reports from CNN and other news outlets. About 99% of the ballots have been counted, according to the CNN website. Garcia, a former […]

Las Vegas-based Department of Energy subcontractor Longenecker & Associates announced this week that retired Jacobs nuclear executive, Terry Hagen, has joined the Longenecker advisory board. Hagen retired effective in June 2019 chief operating officer and president for Jacobs Aerospace, Technology, and Nuclear group. Hagen led Jacobs’ work for the DOE, the Department of Defense, the […]

With the Department of Energy and other federal agencies now working under a continuing budget resolution keeping spending at 2020 levels, the Senate Appropriations Committee finally released its fiscal 2021 budget proposal Tuesday that would keep nuclear cleanup at the 2020 level of nearly $7.5 billion. The Senate Appropriations’ Energy and Water Development bill would […]

The contractor for the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. fixed a problem pump flagged by a federal watchdog, and the newly opened facility has now received 86,000 gallons of waste from the site’s H Tank Farm in its first month of radioactive operations, according to the Department of […]

There are 194 active cases of COVID-19 across the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup complex as of Thursday. The number represents an increase of 53 over the 141 active cases a week ago, a DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson said by email. It also means that the number of active cases has increased […]