Savannah River Site

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) tapped John Benner, who in early March returned to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, to aid the agency with future warhead core production at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The lab subsequently detailed Benner to Washington, where the longtime Los Alamos staffer will work […]

As the state’s elected officials in Washington maintain a measured approach, local officials in Aiken County, S.C., are going all-in on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to bring plutonium pit production to the nearby Savannah River Site. In a resolution passed March 5, the Aiken County Council said it “officially supports” the NNSA “decision […]

A federal appeals court should throw out Nevada’s request to block further shipments of weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site, since the Department of Energy has already shipped the material there, according to court filings from the agency and the state of South Carolina. Nevada is trying to get the U.S. Ninth Circuit […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) tapped John Benner, who in early March returned to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, to aid the agency with future warhead core production at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The lab subsequently detailed Benner to Washington, where the longtime Los Alamos staffer will work […]

As the state’s elected officials in Washington maintain a measured approach, local officials in Aiken County, S.C., are going all-in on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to bring plutonium pit production to the nearby Savannah River Site. In a resolution passed March 5, the Aiken County Council said it “officially supports” the NNSA “decision […]

The H-Canyon processing facilities at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina currently generate roughly 100,000 gallons per year of radioactive liquid waste, a figure expected to grow to about 200,000 per year in fiscal 2022. After fiscal 2022, the amount of liquid waste going from H-Canyon into the SRS liquid waste […]

The Department of Energy is proposing a $417 million cut to funding for environmental remediation at the Hanford Site in Washington state, while boosting spending for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by $91 million. On March 11, the agency rolled out the broad outlines of its fiscal 2020 budget […]

The U.S. Department of Energy said last week it is ahead of schedule in removing 1 metric ton of plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and should finish the court-mandated process by the end of the year. The Energy Department update was seemingly prompted by a March 1 letter that South Carolina […]

The Department of Energy will keep the current liquid waste management vendor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on the job for an additional 18 months, a move that comes about two weeks after it canceled plans for a new decade-long contract. In a post on a federal procurement website, DOE said Monday […]

The Department of Energy does not know yet what action it will take on its proposed reinterpretation of the definition of high-level radioactive waste (HLW), Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White said last week. “We don’t have a real distinct schedule on that. Again, we are trying to take our time and be deliberative,” […]

The Donald Trump administration has proposed a $6.5 billion budget for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management in fiscal 2020, slightly less than the $6.6 billion requested last year but 11 percent below the $7.2 billion eventually enacted by Congress. The office’s funding for the budget year that began Oct. 1 is its largest […]

The Energy Department will keep the current waste management vendor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on the job for an additional 18 months, a move that comes about two weeks after it canceled plans for a new decade-long contract. In a post on a federal procurement website, DOE said Monday it plans […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans in fiscal 2020 to begin converting a canceled plutonium disposal facility in South Carolina into a plutonium pit factory while starting work on a replacement disposal facility. At a total of about $2 billion, the agency’s requested 2020 Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation budget “provides significant resources for strategic materials […]

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said Monday she will block the Senate from quickly confirming nominees for senior Department of Energy jobs until the agency schedules removal of a half-ton tranche of plutonium from Nevada. “Until I get commitment from [Secretary of Energy Rick Perry] that [DOE] will set a date for the removal of […]

The U.S. Department of Energy said last week it is ahead of schedule in removing 1 metric ton of plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and should finish the court-mandated process by the end of the year. The Energy Department update was seemingly prompted by a March 1 letter that South Carolina […]

The Energy Department on Wednesday issued a final request for proposals for a potential $1 billion, 10-year paramilitary security services contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The current $990 million contract, held by Centerra-SRS, started in October 2009 and runs through Oct. 7. The latest DOE procurement schedule says the department could […]

Operations at a key Savannah River Site waste facility are expected to increase later this year, in unison with the startup of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Department of Energy facility in South Carolina. Staffing increases are also expected at the SRS Saltstone Production Facility, which mixes treated salt waste with a cement […]

PHOENIX, Ariz. — Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White said this week she wishes her office had moved sooner to cancel the procurement for a decade-long liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. As with many government decisions, this one “could have been more timely,” White said in […]

The Energy Department on Wednesday issued a final request for proposals for a potential $1 billion, 10-year paramilitary security services contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The current $990 million contract, held by Centerra-SRS, started in October 2009 and runs through Oct. 7. The latest DOE procurement schedule says the department could […]

The state of South Carolina has no better idea than anyone else outside the National Nuclear Security Administration  (NNSA) about whether the agency has yet shipped 500 kilograms of weapon-usable plutonium to the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, according to a recent court filing. In December 2017, a federal judge in South Carolina ordered the […]

The Department of Energy said this week it has not yet decided whether to accept highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Germany at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. There is no schedule for a decision to be made. While Germany would pay for the mission, the total cost and potential technology concerns are being […]

The Energy Department on Wednesday issued a final request for proposals for a potential $1 billion, 10-year paramilitary security services contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The current $990 million contract, held by Centerra-SRS, started in October 2009 and runs through Oct. 7. The latest DOE procurement schedule says the department could […]

An increased risk of radioactive contamination combined with the flouting of federal environmental laws should have persuaded a federal judge to block the Department of Energy from sending weapon-usable plutonium to Nevada, the Silver State told an appeals court this week. Nevada wants the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California to overturn U.S. District […]

The state of South Carolina has no better idea than anyone else outside the National Nuclear Security Administration  (NNSA) about whether the agency has yet shipped 500 kilograms of weapon-usable plutonium to the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, according to a recent court filing. In December 2017, a federal judge in South Carolina ordered the […]

The U.S. Department of Energy could do a better job of monitoring how its contractors spend billions of dollars in federal money, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday. A new GAO report recommends DOE entities, including the Office of Environmental Management and the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, put more emphasis on how management and […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday formally canceled the liquid waste management procurement for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, citing “significant changes” to requirements at the facility and its own acquisition strategy. That is the crux of a one-page letter sent to the three bidders on what could have amounted to a decade-long […]

The latest procurement schedule from the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management indicates draft requests for proposals for major work at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee and the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York could be issued this spring. A draft RFP for a new Idaho Cleanup Project contract could go out this […]

Todd Wright, who retired last August as vice president and general manager of AECOM’s Aiken, S.C.-based nuclear and environment business, has received South Carolina’s highest civilian award. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) formally inducted Wright into the Order of the Palmetto during a ceremony in the governor’s office last week. The award is given […]

The U.S. Department of Energy will likely need an updated strategy sooner than anticipated for temporary storage of treated radioactive liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to the DOE Inspector General’s Office. The department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) did not properly assess the reliability of its strategy to store […]

While the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) hopes the Department of Energy will readjust its classification of high-level radioactive waste, it has not forgotten the federal agency still owes Congress a report on the issue. The ECA asked the House and Senate Armed Services committees on Tuesday to “attempt to require” compliance with a provision of the […]