Cleanup & Remediation

Department of Energy contractor officers should by Friday, and unilaterally, if necessary, modify the agency’s existing major site contracts to include a COVID-19 mandate, according to long-awaited guidance published Wednesday by DOE. The directive applies to “Management and Operating (M&O) contracts, major site/facility contracts and onsite support service contracts,” the agency wrote in the guidance.  […]

More than 60 members of the Washington state legislature have asked President Joe Biden to reconsider the Department of Justice’s challenge to an “overwhelmingly bipartisan state law to provide industrial insurance coverage to workers made sick” while doing cleanup work at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. In 2018 the legislature easily passed HB 1723 […]

Under the end state contracting approach, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has embraced indefinite duration, indefinite quantity agreements to a greater extent, the acting head of contracting, Angela Watmore, told an industry gathering in Eastern Tennessee Wednesday. “We took a hard look at where we were in the cleanup portfolio” for the […]

The Department of Energy’s advisory board for the Portsmouth Site in Ohio has postponed its meeting set for Thursday in Piketon, Ohio and will reschedule it at a later date, according to a statement Monday from the administrative contractor for the board. An email from EHI Consultants, on behalf of the advisory board cited two […]

A contractor for the Department of Energy has finished tearing down the last of 18 buildings at the Energy Technology Engineering Center within the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, Calif., the agency said Monday. The last of the buildings at the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC), Sodium Pump Test Facility, came down Friday, […]

Ty Blackford, who was CEO of the Jacobs subsidiary formerly in charge of cleanup at the Central Plateau of the Hanford Site in Washington state, is leading transition efforts for the Jacobs-led joint venture scheduled to take over remediation for the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory by Jan. 1. That is according to a […]

A federal judge nixed a fishing expedition for a big tranche of data sought by people who live near the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site and who are trying to organize a class action lawsuit against eight current and former DOE contractors at the rural Ohio site. In a mid-September court filing,U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth […]

Barry Goss, who founded Professional Project Services, or Pro2Serve, 25 years ago, is stepping down next week as the CEO although he will remain as a non-executive chairman of the board, the federal government contractor said in a Thursday press release. Mark DeGraff, a 20-year Pro2Serve employee, was to succeed Goss as CEO on Monday. […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. is again receiving transuranic shipments after a combination of underground conditions and temporary staffing problems from COVID-19 halted disposal for a month. “Yes, shipments resumed,” a spokesman for Nuclear Waste Partnership, prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), said by email Wednesday. […]

United Steelworkers local unions at five Department of Energy sites are urging elected officials from their states to intercede on their behalf against President Joe Biden’s plans for mandatory vaccinations of federal contractor employees. The Sept. 17 letter was sent to the governors in all five states: Gov. Brad Little (R) of Idaho, Gov. Mike […]

Removal of radioactively contaminated soil along a stretch of Middle DP Road in Los Alamos County, N.M., near a new housing complex, poses little risk to human health and should be about done this month, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said this week. That’s a little later than the Sept. 30 target […]

A total of 20 employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state informed management this week that they tested positive for COVID-19. In addition, federal employees and contractors at Hanford were told Wednesday that visitors coming to the site must either attest they are fully vaccinated or provide evidence of a negative […]

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson plans to file legal arguments with the U.S. Supreme Court by Nov. 15 responding to a U.S. Department of Justice petition to overturn a 2018 state law that made it easier for cleanup employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to qualify for worker compensation. That’s according to Brionna […]

United Steelworkers local unions at five Department of Energy sites are urging elected officials from their states to intercede on their behalf against President Joe Biden’s plans for mandatory vaccinations of federal contractor employees. “The government has not done a very good job of winning a large percentage of the public’s trust when it comes […]

A total of nine employees at the Department of Energy Hanford Site in Washington state informed management Monday they have tested positive for COVID-19. That is according to a post on a DOE website for Hanford maintained by Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions. Meanwhile, on Friday, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina posted on […]

As of last week, the legacy cleanup contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico had excavated most potholes along a radiologically contaminated stretch of Middle DP Road in Los Alamos County, N.M., and believes the attendant risk to human health is low, a manager with the Department of Energy told a meeting […]

The Department of Energy nuclear cleanup office has until Thursday to meet its own previously-announced target of issuing a final request for proposals this month for the multibillion-dollar  Savannah River Site Management and Operating Contract in South Carolina. Also, Jacobs-led Idaho Environmental Coalition will begin its 90-day transition Friday, Oct. 1, to head what is […]

By John Stang For want of a quorum, the Hanford Advisory Board this week could not officially recommend that the Department of Energy do something about a radioactive waste tank leak reported in April and plan for future leaks the board feels are sure to follow.  DOE recently told the board that the terms of […]

A local wish list for speeding cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky headed the agenda as Paducah Chamber of Commerce representatives visited federal officials in Washington, D.C. this week. “During this two-day trip, we will meet with Members of Congress, federal officials and key federal agencies to share details on what’s […]

With the number of weekly cases still well into triple digits in the old weapons complex, the Department of Energy wants its employees to receive their final vaccination against COVID-19 by Nov. 8, and said it could soon set a deadline for contractor employees to get the shot, according to a memo from the agency’s […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina spends much of its infrastructure money taking care of “aging, old systems” some of which are 70 years old, an agency official told the site’s Citizens Advisory Board Monday. David Bender, the DOE infrastructure services director at the federal complex along the Georgia state line, […]

An assistant attorney general for the state of Washington in a filing Monday asked a federal court to dismiss Gov. Jay Inslee (D) from litigation filed last month by an individual angered by COVID-19 policies implemented by both the state and federal government. Joseph B. Jensen, Sr., who reportedly works at the Department of Energy’s […]

Idaho-based North Wind Portage is expected to remain on the job as a remediation contractor for up to two more years at an old Department of Energy research site within the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, Calif., the Department of Energy said this week.  In an amendment to a justification for an exception […]

The House Appropriations Committee’s proposed two-month stopgap spending bill for 2022 that would keep the Department of Energy cleanup office at roughly fiscal 2021 levels, but also includes a provision to prevent a shortfall in uranium cleanup funds after Oct. 1. The plan released Tuesday by House Appropriations, and passed later the same day in […]

An assistant attorney general for the state of Washington in a filing Monday asked a federal court to dismiss Gov. Jay Inslee (D) from litigation filed last month by an individual angered by COVID-19 policies implemented by both the state and federal government. Joseph B. Jensen, Sr., who reportedly works at the Department of Energy’s […]

The Department of Energy wants its employees fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before Thanksgiving, which means they have until Nov. 8 to receive their final injection, according to a memo from the agency’s chief of staff. The memo, dated Tuesday from DOE’s chief of staff Tarak Shah and viewed by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, does not […]

A local wish list for speeding cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky headed the agenda as Paducah Chamber of Commerce representatives visited federal officials in Washington, D.C. yesterday and today. “During this two-day trip, we will meet with Members of Congress, federal officials and key federal agencies to share details on […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina spends much of its infrastructure money taking care of “aging, old systems” some of which are 70 years old, an agency official told the site’s Citizens Advisory Board Monday. David Bender, the DOE infrastructure services director at the federal complex along the Georgia state line, […]

The head of the United Steelworkers Local 1-689 at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio estimates more than half of his 939 union members at the uranium cleanup site have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The Steelworkers union local has asked DOE and its contractors at the former gaseous diffusion plant in Pike County, […]

In the end, most if not all big Department of Energy contractors will fall in line behind a federal requirement for workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, although some workers will quit rather than taking the shot, based on conversations with five industry sources this week. Most of these people, whom Weapons Complex Monitor granted […]