Savannah River Site

HENDERSON, Nev. – Parsons Senior Vice President Frank Sheppard Jr. expressed confidence Thursday the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina will start operation in 2019. “We are going to start up next year,” Sheppard said during a panel presentation on tank waste at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste […]

Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies said Wednesday it has promoted Heatherly H. Dukes to the position of president of the company’s Technical Services Group. Dukes has most recently served as the group’s chief operating officer, overseeing BWXT operations at more than a dozen Energy Department and NASA facilities with an annual contract value of about $7 […]

The Department of Energy must hold additional public hearings in the Pacific Northwest on a proposal that could lead to a limited amount of radioactive waste being grouted in place in the Hanford Site’s underground storage tanks, according to three members of Washington state’s congressional delegation. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, along with Rep. […]

Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies said Wednesday it has promoted Heatherly H. Dukes to the position of president of the company’s Technical Services Group. Dukes has most recently served as the group’s chief operating officer, overseeing BWXT operations at more than a dozen Energy Department and NASA facilities with an annual contract value of about $7 […]

The head of the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office fears remediation within the weapons complex has reached a “plateau” and needs a push to advance toward closure of many sites. Toward that, the office is developing strategic plans both for its full operations and for specific properties over the coming decade. “The analogy that comes […]

The Department of Energy will not be able to deliver 80 new nuclear-warhead cores per year in 2030 unless it starts building new plutonium processing facilities in South Carolina by the middle of 2019, the head of the Nuclear Weapons Council said Thursday. “From the Nuclear Weapons Council perspective, the Department of Energy (DOE) needs […]

Halting construction on the controversial Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) is not only legal, but it’s the quickest way to remove nuclear weapon-usable plutonium from South Carolina, the Department of Energy said Friday in a brief filed in federal court. The DOE reply brief in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals provides more pieces […]

Los Angeles-based engineering giant AECOM on Monday announced that it has promoted former Department of Energy official Mark Whitney to lead its nuclear and environment business unit, filling the slot vacated by Todd Wright. Wright recently retired as executive vice president and general manager of the AECOM branch, but is staying on at the company […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina earlier this month sent its first shipment of transuranic (TRU) waste for 2018 to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, ending a yearlong layoff in waste exports. The DOE facility said in a press release it shipped “five standard waste boxes” to […]

A major infrastructure replacement at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is inching toward completion, though the Department of Energy is hesitant to state when that might occur. The agency first reported in April that Parsons, the contractor that constructed the facility and is preparing it for operations, would need to replace […]

BWX Technologies still hopes its team can win the multibillion-dollar liquid waste management contract for the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, executives said Aug. 7. The Lynchburg, Va., company partnered with Bechtel and Honeywell in Savannah River EcoManagement, which last fall initially won a 10-year, $4.7 billion contract to take over the […]

The August doldrums in Washington weren’t quite as quiet as in past years, and there was plenty of news during the ExchangeMonitor’s annual publication break. As chronicled in the Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, here are a few stories we’ve been following. Hanford Treats Over 2 Billion Gallons of Contaminated Groundwater in FY18 Workers at the Hanford […]

Longtime Energy Department hand Jim Owendoff has left his job as the No. 2 official in the Office of Environmental Management (EM) to become a special adviser on nuclear cleanup issues at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Mark Gilbertson, associate principal deputy assistant secretary for EM’s Office of Regulatory and Policy Affairs, will […]

The Department of Energy this week released a draft solicitation for a Savannah River Site management and operations contract that could be worth nearly $15 billion over 10 years, including construction of new tritium facilities to power up U.S. nuclear weapons. Interested parties can meet DOE officials on site for two days of one-on-one meetings and […]

The Department of Energy this week released a draft solicitation for a Savannah River Site management and operations contract that could be worth nearly $15 billion over 10 years, including construction of new tritium facilities to power up U.S. nuclear weapons. Interested parties can meet DOE officials on site for two days of one-on-one meetings and […]

It would be “logical” for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to take over as landlord of the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., “at some point,” the site’s top federal manager told attendees of a local group’s breakfast meeting Wednesday. Savannah River Site Manager Michael Budney’s remarks before the Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday released a draft solicitation for a Savannah River Site management and operations contract that could be worth nearly $15 billion over 10 years, including construction of new tritium facilities to power up U.S. nuclear weapons. Interested parties can meet DOE officials on site for three days of one-on-one meetings beginning […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina earlier this month sent its first shipment of transuranic (TRU) waste for 2018 to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, ending a yearlong layoff in waste exports. The DOE facility said in a press release it shipped “five standard waste boxes” to […]

The South Carolina attorney general has revealed most of the argument he will use to convince a federal appeals judge that a lower court was right to stop the Department of Energy from canceling construction of an over-budget plutonium disposal project at the Savannah River Site. In an appellee brief filed Aug. 10 with the […]

Effective today, longtime James Owendoff has left his job as the No. 2 official in the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) to become a special adviser on nuclear cleanup issues at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Mark Gilbertson, associate principal deputy assistant secretary for EM’s Office of Regulatory and Policy Affairs, […]

A major infrastructure replacement at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is inching toward completion, though the Department of Energy is hesitant to state when that might occur. The agency first reported in April that Parsons, the contractor that constructed the facility and is preparing it for operations, would need to replace […]

President Donald Trump on Monday signed the $717 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2019, officially setting budget limits for the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons and cleanup operations. Trump did not mention either program during a signing ceremony before several hundred people at the U.S. Army’s Fort Drum in New York state. Congress […]

A $50 million project intended to reduce the cost and time of nuclear cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site is at a standstill due to funding disagreements between the federal government and local stakeholders in South Carolina. The Aiken Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a group spearheaded by a local economic development group, is […]

BWX Technologies still hopes its team can win the multibillion-dollar liquid waste management contract for the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, executives said Tuesday. The Lynchburg, Va., company partnered with Bechtel and Honeywell in Savannah River EcoManagement, which last fall initially won a 10-year, $4.7 billion contract to take over the work. […]

The U.S. Department of Energy might reclassify some treated liquid waste from the Savannah River Site, along with equipment used to process the waste, and send the materials to a permanent repository in New Mexico, according to a July 30 letter that accepts a recommendation from the Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) for the South Carolina […]

The Energy Department could issue a draft request for proposals this month for a paramilitary security services contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to a recently updated list of major procurements from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). The final RFP for the contract, forecast to be worth $1 billion to […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., expects in 2019 to receive the first shipments from 6 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium being downblended at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. That was the word Thursday from DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader during a “WIPP Town Hall” public […]

AVANTech Inc. of Columbia, S.C., has acquired Mid Columbia Engineering Inc. (MCE), a Richland, Wash., firm that has done work at the nearby Hanford Site. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. AVANTech plans to continue to expand the Richland manufacturing and service facility and use it to help deliver products and services to […]

With one day left to spare, the U.S. Energy Department announced Monday that it would extend by one year the contract for the Savannah River Site’s management and operations provider. The initial contract for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), a 10-year deal worth $9.5 billion, was set to expire on July 31. In its press […]

A recent leak of radioactive waste from a storage tank at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina reinforces the need to properly fund the facility’s liquid waste program, local stakeholders said this week. Liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) noticed the leak from Tank 15 in early June and […]