Savannah River Site

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Government Accountability Office (GAO) plans to publish three reports during January and February that will detail challenges facing the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). That was a major takeaway from a Tuesday presentation to a panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine by GAO Director of […]

MOX Services will lay off another 70 people on Feb. 4, bringing the total projected job losses at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) to just over 1,000 by the second month of 2019, according to a notice posted late Tuesday by the nonprofit SC Works organization. MOX Services has so far announced two […]

The Savannah River Site expects in 2019 to use a mixture of new and old methods to increase removal of mercury from its liquid waste system. In late 2017, officials at the Department of Energy facility in South Carolina discovered they could raise pH levels in the waste evaporator tank, a part of the site’s […]

The Energy Department and its contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) have summed up their arguments to the New Mexico state government for a new system of recording underground waste disposal volume. Together with AECOM-led Nuclear Waste Partnership, DOE filed its closing statement with the New Mexico Environment Department on Nov. 28, following […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor wants a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that claims the company is responsible for injuries an employee suffered while working on a trailer. In the Nov. 29 response to a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for South Carolina, lawyers for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) wrote that […]

Nevada escalated a closed-door dialogue with the Department of Energy (DOE) to the federal court system because the agency got cagey about its plans for moving 1 metric ton of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium to and from the state beginning in 2019, according to an affidavit produced this week. The document, from an adviser to Nevada […]

The management and operations contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina said it has enough job openings for more than half of the people who will be laid off as a result of the Department of Energy canceling construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) “does have […]

The Energy Department is giving interested parties additional time to weigh in on the proposed new interpretation of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). The public comment deadline has been pushed back from Dec. 10 to Jan. 9, according to a DOE notice Tuesday in the Federal Register. Comments can be emailed to HLWnotice@em.doe.gov. After the department […]

Nevada on Friday asked a federal judge to bar the Department of Energy (DOE) from shipping 1 metric ton of plutonium to the state, potentially throwing a wrench in the agency’s plans to comply with an order from another federal judge to move the material out of South Carolina by Jan. 1, 2020. Nevada sued […]

The Energy Department expects to soon issue a request for proposals for paramilitary security services at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The notice of the upcoming solicitation was posted Tuesday on the Federal Business Opportunities website. The RFP is due to go out within 15 to 60 days, which translates to the […]

The Department of Energy should consider performing a lengthy environmental review of its plan to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium by burying the material deep underground, a congressionally chartered panel said Friday. The department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) might find the disposal plan easier to manage if it produces […]

The Department of Energy should increase use of solar power at the Savannah River Site as it addresses aging infrastructure issues, the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) said Tuesday. The recommendation was forwarded to DOE headquarters on a 17-0 board vote. It emphasizes the 310-square-mile South Carolina facility’s suitability for solar power: plenty of cleared land on which solar panels could […]

The management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., recently hired 24 new workers for tritium operations and plans to continue ramping up the staff. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) manages production of tritium gas under the Savannah River Tritium Enterprise (SRTE). Tritium gas triggers the chain reaction […]

The federal government and South Carolina expressed optimism Monday that they can settle a $100 million claim over plutonium that remains stranded in the state. “Pursuant to the Court’s Order filed October 24, 2018 … the parties report that at this time they continue to believe that it is possible to resolve the pending disputes […]

The Department of Energy should consider performing a lengthy environmental review of its plan to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium by burying the material deep underground, a congressionally chartered panel said Friday. The department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) might find the disposal plan easier to manage if it produces […]

WASHINGTON — William Bookless, nominated to be second-in-command at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), defended the agency’s plan to build two nuclear-warhead-core factories in the face of a double-edged inquisition from a pair of Senate Democrats here Thursday. Facing pressure from a third Democratic lawmaker during his confirmation hearing, the physicist and longtime […]

The Department of Energy should increase use of solar power at the Savannah River Site as it addresses aging infrastructure issues, the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) said Tuesday. The recommendation was forwarded to DOE headquarters on a 17-0 board vote. It emphasizes the 310-square-mile South Carolina facility’s suitability for solar power: plenty of cleared land on which solar panels could […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – While the Energy Department’s top nuclear cleanup manager said Wednesday her office will not use a new agency order to thwart oversight by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), members of the panel remained apprehensive. Order 140.1, issued in May, will not change the relationship between DOE’s Office of Environmental Management […]

The Energy Department expects to soon issue a request for proposals for paramilitary security services at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The notice of the upcoming solicitation was posted Tuesday on the Federal Business Opportunities website. The RFP is due to go out within 15 to 60 days, which translates to the […]

The Energy Department could reissue the liquid waste management contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina within hours, according to the most recent schedule for major procurements at its Office of Environmental Management. The DOE nuclear cleanup office posted the latest timeline on Nov. 19, and said the waste contract could be awarded […]

While the Department of Energy has spent $164 billion since 1989 to remediate Cold War-related nuclear and hazardous waste, its environmental liability has grown, according to the agency’s Office of Inspector General. The department’s environmental liability has more than doubled from a low of $176 billion in fiscal 1997 to $384 billion in fiscal 2017, […]

Bechtel has hired a veteran Energy Department and nuclear energy industry manager as chief for nuclear safety and operations within its Engineering division. Chip Lagdon will oversee nuclear safety analyses for Bechtel’s DOE cleanup and nuclear security missions, the company said in a press release last week. Lagdon will also work on safety and licensing […]

The Department of Energy should increase use of solar power at the Savannah River Site as it addresses aging infrastructure issues, the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) said Tuesday. The recommendation was forwarded to DOE headquarters on a 17-0 board vote. It emphasizes the 310-square-mile South Carolina facility’s suitability for solar power: plenty of cleared land on which solar panels could […]

The Energy Department expects to soon issue a request for proposals for paramilitary security services at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The notice of the upcoming solicitation was posted Tuesday on the Federal Business Opportunities website. The Energy Department expects to issue the actual RFP within 15 to 60 days. The new […]

Mark Gilbertson’s official promotion to the No. 2 spot at the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management means added responsibility for his acting replacement as the cleanup office’s head of regulatory and policy issues. Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management Anne Marie White on Nov. 20 named Gilbertson her permanent principal deputy assistant secretary, […]

The federal government and South Carolina expressed optimism Monday that they can settle a $100 million claim over plutonium that remains stranded in the state. “Pursuant to the Court’s Order filed October 24, 2018 … the parties report that at this time they continue to believe that it is possible to resolve the pending disputes […]

The management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., recently hired 24 new workers for tritium operations and plans to continue ramping up the staff. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) manages production of tritium gas under the Savannah River Tritium Enterprise (SRTE). Tritium gas triggers the chain reaction […]

The Energy Department now anticipates reissuing the liquid waste management contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by the end of this month, according to the latest schedule for major procurements at its Office of Environmental Management. The DOE nuclear cleanup office posted the latest timeline on Nov. 19. It supersedes an Oct. […]

Bechtel has hired a veteran Energy Department and nuclear energy industry manager as chief for nuclear safety and operations within its Engineering division. Chip Lagdon will oversee nuclear safety analyses for Bechtel’s DOE cleanup and nuclear security missions, the company said in a press release last week. Lagdon will also work on safety and licensing […]

The prime contractor of a canceled plutonium-disposal plant in South Carolina cried foul in a long-running lawsuit against its client, the National Nuclear Security Administration, after the government allegedly broke a promise not to dispute certain costs claimed under the nearly 20-year-old contract. MOX Services said the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) disputed more than […]