Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)

Two key projects at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico are nearing completion. Construction of the North Access Road should be finished by the end of the month, according to Donavan Mager, spokesman for WIPP management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership. The purpose of the $10 million, 3-mile bypass […]

WASHINGTON — Sen. Patty Murray (D) on Wednesday became the latest lawmaker from Washington state to chastise Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette for the deep budget cuts proposed for the Hanford Site in fiscal 2021. Funding for the two Energy Department offices at Hanford, considered the nation’s most complex and expensive nuclear cleanup, would be slashed […]

Two key projects at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico are nearing completion. Construction of the North Access Road should be finished by the end of the month, according to Donavan Mager, spokesman for WIPP management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership. The purpose of the $10 million, 3-mile bypass […]

As the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) seeks a larger-than-expected budget increase for 2021, another branch of the Department of Energy is seeking much less funding for cleanup of excess nuclear-weapon production sites The Office of Environmental Management (EM) is requesting about $200 million for remediation at NNSA-owned facilities in the budget year beginning Oct. 1, […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) on Thursday expressed dismay at the dramatically reduced level of money the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state would receive under the White House latest budget request. The agency has a moral and legal obligation to clean up 56 million gallons of liquid waste, generated by decades of plutonium production […]

While remediation is nearly complete at a couple of the 16 sites overseen by the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, other cleanup efforts could last late into this century, according a roundup included in the Donald Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal 2021. The Energy Department announced in June 2019 that demolition of facilities […]

Amentum, the Maryland-based successor to AECOM’s Management Services branch, announced a pair of executive promotions this week. Tom Foster, president and project manager at the Savannah River Remediation joint venture in South Carolina, on Wednesday was named chief operating officer for Amentum’s Nuclear & Environment business unit. On Thursday, the company said it is promoting […]

Nuclear remediation sites overseen by the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would receive another small bump in funding for safeguards and security in fiscal 2021, according to budget tables released by the Donald Trump administration early Monday. The proposal for $321 million in the budget year beginning Oct. 1 is a step up from […]

While BWX Technologies lost out on a multibillion-dollar remediation contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state, President and CEO Rex Geveden said Tuesday he is optimistic about a “robust” pipeline of potential Energy Department projects. “Unfortunately, we were not awarded the Hanford Central Plateau Cleanup contract,” Geveden said during the Lynchburg, Va.-based company’s quarterly […]

A former head of the prime contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, Philip Breidenbach, will lead the vendor team in charge of managing liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Amentum, the successor to AECOM’s government contracting branch, announced Thursday that Breidenbach will replace Tom […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it plans to soon start work on a South Carolina plutonium disposal project — operations that will consume about one-third of the amount Congress appropriated for the project in the current 2020 federal budget year. This site preparation work for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition project at the […]

A transportation provider for the cleanup contractor at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee was involved a January fender-bender while moving low-level radioactive waste along a highway in Arkansas. No injuries resulted and no radioactive soil spilled in the accident, according to a Feb.7 DOE accident report. The subcontractor, Metler Hauling & Rigging, […]

The Donald Trump administration on Monday requested $6.1 billion for the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management during fiscal 2021, which would be an 18% reduction from the $7.5 billion enacted by Congress in the current budget year. It also represents a $400 million slice from the $6.5 billion the White House sought last March […]

The Energy Department on Tuesday issued a draft request for proposals for the potential 10-to-15-year, $6.4 billion contract for the Idaho Cleanup Project. The work at the Idaho National Laboratory includes operation of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, management and disposal of both low-level radioactive and transuranic waste, decommissioning old facilities, and spent fuel management […]

Several of the 16 nuclear cleanup sites overseen by the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would receive less money during the upcoming fiscal 2021 than they do in the current budget, under the latest spending proposal from the administration of President Donald Trump. Environmental remediation funding for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee would […]

It could be nearly a decade before the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state ships more transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, an Oregon official said last week. However, “eventually Hanford will be the predominant shipper of waste to WIPP,” Ken Niles, administrator for the Hanford and Nuclear […]

The Energy Department and a contractor are gearing up to seek renewal of their 10-year state hazardous waste facility permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The current state permit was issued to DOE and WIPP management contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership on Nov. 30, 2010, becoming effective one month later, according to […]

While Amentum is a new company, it is far from a new face doing business for government nuclear and environmental agencies, a senior executive said Tuesday. The former AECOM Management Services division officially became Amentum on Jan. 31 with the closure of the $2.4 billion sale to affiliates of New York-based investment firms Lindsay Goldberg […]

Engineering and construction giant AECOM has completed the $2.4 billion sale of its Management Service business to an affiliate of two New York investment firms. Sale of the subsidiary to American Securities LLC and Lindsay Goldberg LLC closed on Jan. 31, according to an AECOM press release Monday. The new company, called Amentum, is now […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Under pressure from the state of Texas, the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office has agreed to relocate drums containing potentially combustible radioactive transuranic waste stored since 2014 at the privately operated Waste Control Specialists facility in Andrews County. “We are going to work to disposition the legacy TRU waste from Los Alamos […]

Having successfully divested its government-contracting business, AECOM continues to look for a successor to Chairman and CEO Michael Burke. Burke, 56, announced in November that he plans to retire pending selection of a replacement. Speaking to financial analysts Monday during AECOM’s quarterly earnings call, he said a search committee is making good progress on finding […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Under pressure from the state of Texas, the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office has agreed to relocate drums containing potentially combustible radioactive transuranic waste stored since 2014 at the privately operated Waste Control Specialists facility in Andrews County. “We are going to work to disposition the legacy TRU waste from Los Alamos […]

New Mexico’s entire congressional delegation this month called on the Department of Energy to suspend a controversial order that the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) says has curtailed its access to nuclear-weapon sites. The Energy Department should lift the almost 2-year-old Order 140.1 to comply with recent changes to federal law that require […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B), the vendor in charge of legacy environmental remediation operations at the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico, won 84% of its potential fee for work done during fiscal 2019. Altogether, N3B took home more than $8.6 million of a potential amount exceeding $10.2 million, […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B), the vendor in charge of legacy environmental remediation operations at the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico, won 84% of its potential fee for work done during fiscal 2019. Altogether, N3B took home more than $8.6 million of a potential amount exceeding $10.2 million, according […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) hopes to meet soon with new U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette to discuss public health and safety issues at nuclear sites overseen by his agency. In a Jan. 16 letter, DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton congratulated Brouillette on his December confirmation as energy secretary and said the board would […]

Lynchburg, Va. -based BWX Technologies has promoted Richard Loving to a newly created post of senior vice president and chief administrative officer (CAO). Loving has been senior vice president for human resources at BWXT since mid-2016. He has about 40 years of management experience in manufacturing, energy, and government operations, according to a press release. […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) hopes to meet soon with new U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette to discuss public health and safety issues at nuclear sites overseen by his agency. In a Jan. 16 letter, DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton congratulated Brouillette on his December confirmation as energy secretary and said the board would […]

Lynchburg, Va. -based BWX Technologies has promoted Richard Loving to a newly created post of senior vice president and chief administrative officer (CAO). Loving has been senior vice president for human resources at BWXT since mid-2016. He has about 40 years of management experience in manufacturing, energy, and government operations, according to a press release. […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico received 292 shipments of transuranic waste during 2019, dipping from 311 the year before, according to the latest figures on the site’s publicly available website. The last shipment recorded on the website was Dec.7, although the database typically runs a couple weeks behind […]