Cleanup & Remediation

A Department of Labor board last week ruled against a Hanford contractor’s appeal of a 2016 decision favoring two whistleblowers at the former plutonium production site in Washington state. Labor’s Administrative Review Board on March 10 upheld federal Administrative Law Judge Christopher Larson’s 2016 ruling that Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) experts Kirtley Clem and Matthew […]

After receiving final go-ahead from the state, contractor North Wind Portage started demolition this week on one the four remaining contaminated buildings within the Department of Energy’s portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, California. Demolition of Building 4038 started Monday and will take a month to complete, the California Department of […]

The Department of Energy, Washington State and the Environmental Protection Agency are meeting more frequently these days to negotiate changes to legally binding Hanford cleanup deadlines that longstanding technical challenges — and later, COVID-19 — may have made untenable, a Washington state official said Wednesday. “I am optimistic on some progress we have made,” Bowen […]

The Department of Energy could formally reply to subcontractor complaints at the Hanford Site in Washington state “within the next few days or the next few weeks,” Brian Vance, the top manager at the facility said Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management executive made his comments during a virtual meeting of the Hanford Advisory […]

Virginia-based Bechtel announced in a press release this week that Stephen Bechtel Jr., who served three decades as CEO of the privately-held company that bears his family’s name, died Monday at age 95. In 1960 Stephen Bechtel Jr. became CEO of the company started by his grandfather in 1898, according to the Washington Post, and […]

Contractor North Wind Portage has received final go-ahead to tear down the last few remaining contaminated buildings within the Department of Energy’s portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, California. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control in a March 4 letter approved DOE plans for demolition of the remaining buildings at […]

The head of the joint venture that manages the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site expects the rate of employee COVID-19 vaccinations to go from a trickle to a steady stream in the near future. “We have about 1,500 folks that have an appointment ready to go for their vaccinations,” within the next couple of […]

The conversion of depleted uranium hexafluoride at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky came to a stop in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and had yet to restart as of last week, federal and contractor representatives said during an online conference. Neither Zachary Lafontaine, DOE’s program […]

A Department of Labor board last week ruled against a Hanford contractor’s appeal of a 2016 decision favoring two whistleblowers at the former plutonium production site in Washington state. Labor’s Administrative Review Board on March 10 upheld federal Administrative Law Judge Christopher Larson’s 2016 ruling that Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) experts Kirtley Clem and Matthew […]

During a brief appearance at an online conference Tuesday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm simultaneously praised and challenged the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup community. “This industry is made up of some of the nation’s best engineers and scientists,” Granholm told the Waste Management Symposia conference, which in non-pandemic years happens in Phoenix. At the same […]

The Department of Energy could lengthen contract transition periods under the new procurement model, possibly to 120 days, federal officials said Wednesday during the online Waste Management Symposia. Transition to the Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. venture at the Hanford Site in Washington state, which ended in January, showed 60 days is insufficient to sort […]

While General Atomics, GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse Government Services are companies that know their way around nuclear reactors, representatives from the firms said this week they find it tough to penetrate the procurement market for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.   But the DOE Environmental Management (EM) office wants to increase the contractor pool […]

Dae Chung, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) associate principal deputy assistant secretary for corporate services, defended his organization’s small business record during the online Waste Management Symposia this week. His comments come after a U.S. senator, among others, complained that new procedures seem to be hurting small contractors in Washington state […]

The Department of Energy’s long-awaited Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory could start operating in mid-fall, perhaps October, a Fluor Idaho executive told the online Waste Management Symposia this week. The facility is now in the final weeks of an extended maintenance period that will precede a 50-day test run and eventual […]

With top managers stressing the need to remain vigilant, the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management had 101 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 within the past week, continuing a downward trend that started in late January.  The figure, shared via email Thursday by an Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson, reflects a sizable drop from the […]

Incumbent subcontractors that worked under one Department of Energy prime contract won’t necessarily be kept on under follow-up contracts, unless they were members of a winning proposal team, a top nuclear-cleanup procurement official said this week. Some smaller companies at the Hanford Site in Washington State “were surprised” when DOE ordered new prime contractors who […]

The Department of Energy could lengthen contract transition periods under the new procurement model, possibly to 120 days, federal officials said Wednesday during the online Waste Management Symposia. Transition to the Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. venture at the Hanford Site in Washington state, which ended in January, showed 60 days is insufficient to sort […]

Amentum- and Jacobs-led teams each recently clinched new cleanup contracts at the United Kingdom’s Dounreay site in Scotland. Site prime Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd., a consortium of Cavendish Nuclear, Jacobs and Amentum, awarded both contracts. The Amentum-led team had by far the bigger win, beating out five competitors, including a Jacobs-led team, to clinch a […]

Crews handling legacy cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory were relieved last summer to find an underground chromium plume remained static during three months of bare bones operations due to COVID-19 restrictions. “One of our concerns was the possibility of plume rebound,” where it might drift closer to local drinking water […]

During a brief appearance at an online conference Tuesday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm simultaneously praised and challenged the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup community. “This industry is made up of some of the nation’s best engineers and scientists,” Granholm told the Waste Management Symposia conference, which in non-pandemic years happens in Phoenix. At the same […]

While General Atomics, GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse Government Services are companies that know their way around nuclear reactors, representatives from the firms said Tuesday they find it tough to penetrate the procurement market for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.   But the DOE Environmental Management (EM) office wants to increase the contractor pool serving […]

On March 24, 2020, when the Department of Energy altered operations to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hanford Site in Washington state rapidly went from having 400 to 4,500 people telecommuting, the head of the property’s service contractor told the online Waste Management Symposia on Tuesday. The transition to mass telework cleanup property occurred […]

Dae Chung, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) associate principal deputy assistant secretary for corporate services, defended his organization’s small business record during the online Waste Management Symposia Monday. His comments come after a U.S. senator, among others, complained that new procedures seem to be hurting small contractors in Washington state that […]

The Department of Energy’s long-awaited Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory could start operating in mid-fall, perhaps October, a Fluor Idaho executive told the online Waste Management Symposia Monday. The facility is now in the final weeks of an extended maintenance period that will precede a 50-day test run and eventual approval […]

Although COVID-19 vaccines are starting to trickle across the U.S. population, it is difficult to say when most cleanup workers at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will receive their shots, a senior agency official said Monday at the all-online Waste Management Symposia conference. Environmental Management (EM)’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Todd Shrader would […]

The Waste Management Symposia, a gathering of industry, government and academic nuclear waste specialists that can normally draw about 2,400 participants to Phoenix during March, starts today online with several sessions about the Department of Energy’s cleanup office. This year’s event, exclusive virtual due to COVID-19 precautions, kicks off at about 10 a.m. Eastern Time […]

French waste and water management corporation Veolia suffered a setback last week in its attempt to take over the Suez Group, another French conglomerate in the same business. In dueling press releases Feb. 25 and Feb. 26, neither multinational corporation mentioned the effects of this takeover attempt will have on either’s North American operations, which […]

Rebutting a recent letter from Washington state and the Yakama Tribe, local officials from communities around the Hanford Site this week defended the Department of Energy’s 2019 policy change on high-level waste. In a letter dated Wednesday, mayors and other officials from Benton and Franklin Counties said they are disappointed to see the state, the […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has now logged two straight weeks with confirmed, active COVID-19 cases below the 200 mark. There are 139 confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 within the nuclear cleanup complex, an Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson said by email Thursday morning. That is down from 180 cases last week and […]

President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of energy, David Turk, pledged Thursday to work with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), over concerns a new DOE approach toward subcontractors might hurt small businesses around the Hanford Site in Washington state. “I know it is a priority for you, it will be a priority for me if […]