Savannah River Site

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management expects to stay busy with procurements during the remainder of 2020. The nuclear cleanup office intends to roll out up to six final requests for proposals (RFP) between now and December, according to a quarterly update posted Monday by the Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center. The Energy Department […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday kicked off a long-awaited procurement of the next Savannah River Site management and operations contract with a request for information from industry about the award that will fund the Aiken, S.C., facility’s biggest nuclear-weapons programs. The agency will sort out the value, duration, and exact form of the contract […]

South Carolina and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) could be about to cut a deal in the state’s $200 million lawsuit over the federal government’s failure to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site, court papers show. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted a joint motion to stay the […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday kicked off a long-awaited procurement of the next Savannah River Site management and operations contract with a request for information from industry about the award that will fund the Aiken, S.C., facility’s biggest nuclear-weapons programs. The agency will sort out the value, duration, and exact form of the contract […]

The Department of Energy this week formalized its plan to eventually ship up to 10,000 gallons of wastewater from the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina to a commercial facility in Texas for disposal, under the classification of low-level radioactive waste. The department said it will begin within 12 months by shipping no more […]

South Carolina and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) could be about to cut a deal in the state’s $200 million lawsuit over the federal government’s failure to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site, court papers show. In a joint motion filed Thursday, lawyers for the two sides said settlement negotiations are ongoing and asked […]

The management prime at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has resumed downblending plutonium at the K Area after operations were suspended in October 2019. Workers for site manager Savannah River Nuclear Solutions started downblending 6 metric tons (MT) of surplus plutonium in the K Area in 2017, but the operations were […]

The full House of Representatives on Friday passed in a 217-197 vote a $1.3 trillion package of six spending bills for fiscal 2021, including billions of nuclear cleanup operations managed by the Department of Energy. President Donald Trump is threatening to veto the entire minibus package. In a 29-page statement of administration policy, the White […]

The Department of Energy is so far rejecting requests to extend the Aug. 10 deadline for bids on the contract to operate the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. Multiple potential bidders requested more time in question-and-answer documents published by DOE last week and Monday. Some asked to move the proposal deadline to late […]

Two of the largest properties overseen by the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management reported significant spikes in COVID-19 cases over the past week, although the number of active cases across the complex have dropped. The DOE Office of Environmental Management complex currently has 88 active COVID cases,  down from 94 last week, according to […]

The Energy Department is so far rejecting requests to extend the Aug. 10 deadline for bids on the contract to operate the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. Multiple potential bidders requested more time in question-and-answer documents published by DOE last week and Monday. Some asked to move the proposal deadline to late August, […]

The management prime at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has resumed downblending plutonium at the K Area after operations were suspended in 2019. Workers for site manager Savannah River Nuclear Solutions started downblending plutonium in the K Area in 2017, but the operations were paused last year for an extensive maintenance […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina disclosed late Friday that it now has recorded 183 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among its workforce, up by 52 from July 17. In the first update in a week on novel coronavirus 2019, the SRS website said 102 of the federal and contractor employees have […]

The number of active cases of COVID-19 among Energy Department nuclear cleanup personnel rose substantially this week, and some industry sources suspect this is slowing a return to normal operations at former Cold War and Manhattan Project sites. There were 94 active cases as of Thursday within the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) complex, […]

Michael Steuert has ended his second term as chief financial officer for Fluor, and was succeeded Wednesday by longtime company executive Joe Brennan. The financially troubled Irving, Texas-based engineering and construction multinational announced the change on Friday. Steuert joined Fluor as CFO and senior vice president in 2001 and retired in 2012. He returned as […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries said Tuesday its operations for the Department of Energy would not be affected by the newly announced merging of two business groups. The corporate parent of Newport News Shipbuilding is combining two business lines within its Technical Solutions division: The previous Fleet Support and Mission Driven Innovative Solutions (MDIS) groups are becoming […]

An article in the July 17 Weapons Complex Monitor overstated the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the three counties surrounding the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The article mistakenly reported the total possible infections, which includes confirmed and estimated cases, as reported by the South Carolina Department of Health and […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries said Tuesday its operations for the Department of Energy would not be affected by the newly announced merging of two business groups. The corporate parent of Newport News Shipbuilding is combining two business lines within its Technical Solutions division: The previous Fleet Support and Mission Driven Innovative Solutions (MDIS) groups are becoming […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will soon consider alternatives to breaking down nuclear-weapon cores for disposal at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico as part of a plan to eliminate 34 metric tons of excess plutonium, an agency official said this week. Dilute and dispose, officially the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program, involves […]

There are 66 cases of active coronavirus infection among personnel for nuclear cleanup operations overseen by the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management, an agency representative said Thursday. That is more than double the 31 active cases of COVID-19 disclosed a week ago for the Environmental Management complex. The agency did not offer any theory […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Monday approved its fiscal 2021 energy and water development bill, clearing the way for a vote by the full House later this month on the spending plan that would provide at least $7.5 billion for Energy Department nuclear cleanup. The Democrat-majority panel approved the spending package in a 31-20 vote […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will prepare an updated technical review for the Saltstone Disposal Facility at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The Energy Department requested the technical review of the 2020 Saltstone Disposal Facility performance assessment in keeping with a provision of the 2005 National Defense Authorization Act, according to the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will soon consider alternatives to breaking down nuclear-weapon cores for disposal at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico as part of a plan to eliminate 34 metric tons of excess plutonium, an agency official said this week. Dilute and dispose, officially the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program, involves […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will prepare an updated technical review for the Saltstone Disposal Facility at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The Energy Department requested the technical review of the 2020 Saltstone Disposal Facility performance assessment in keeping with a provision of the 2005 National Defense Authorization Act, according to the […]

Remediation of the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina would be funded at about $1.5 billion for fiscal 2021 under legislation passed out of the House Appropriations Committee on a 30-21 vote Monday. That amount would be about $83 million more than the $1.46 billion enacted by Congress for fiscal 2020, which ends […]

Three nuclear cleanup sites have received approval from the Energy Department to bring back more staff who have been at home for months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Energy Department announced the status change for the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the Paducah Site in Kentucky, and the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York in […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina as of Wednesday had confirmed 70 cases of COVID-19 among its workforce, the most known within the facilities of the Department of Energy nuclear complex. The Energy Department this week recorded the first COVID-19-related death among the site’s 11,000-person workers. Officials said Monday that an employee of operations […]

The House Appropriations Committee indicated Monday it plans to fund the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management at $7.46 million for fiscal 2021. The nuclear cleanup funding is roughly equal to the amount appropriated for fiscal 2020, which ends Sept. 30, and an increase of $1.4 billion from the request submitted in February by the […]

The Energy Department confirmed Monday that an employee of the prime contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has died as a result of COVID-19. “I regret to inform you that we have lost a member of the SRNS [Savannah River Nuclear Solutions] team to a COVID-related death,” SRNS President and CEO Stuart […]

Management at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state confirmed two more cases of COVID-19 over the three-day July 4 holiday weekend. The online posts on the Energy Department website for the nuclear cleanup site did not provide any details on the infected individuals – such as whether they are federal employees or work […]