Cleanup & Remediation

Federal career man William ‘Ike” White, who has acted as the top boss at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management since June 2019, remains in the top job during the early stages of the administration of President Joe Biden. Meanwhile, outside DOE, the new administration appointed Joyce Connery as the new chair of […]

The Department of Energy will not pursue a civil penalty against Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth over nuclear safety violations in fiscal year 2019 after it cut $2.6 million from the company’s potential $6.7-million subjective fee that year. The infractions at the former gaseous diffusion plant complex in Ohio stem from shortcomings in worker radiation protection at the […]

A federal judge in Virginia this week refused to throw out a lawsuit filed by a Department of Energy subcontractor, Professional Project Services or Pro2Serve, claiming Leidos Integrated Technology wrongly excluded it from a team about to take over site services at Hanford in Washington state. In the November suit filed in the U.S. District […]

For now at least, the compensation for top managers under the next Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup Contract in Tennessee will be capped at $525,000 annually, the Department of Energy said in a procurement document posted Jan. 15. The DOE issued its final request for proposals for a new Oak Ridge remediation contract last month and […]

The Department of Energy will not pursue a civil penalty against Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth over nuclear safety violations in fiscal year 2019 after it cut $2.6 million from the company’s potential $6.7-million subjective fee that year. The infractions at the former gaseous diffusion plant complex in Ohio stem from shortcomings in worker radiation protection at the […]

For now at least, the compensation for top managers under the next Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup Contract in Tennessee will be capped at $525,000 annually, the Department of Energy said in a procurement document posted Jan. 15. The DOE issued its final request for proposals for a new Oak Ridge remediation contract last month and […]

Remaining cleanup costs at the West Valley Demonstration Project site in New York could run anywhere from $1.4 billion to $10.6 billion depending on how much contamination is dug up and shipped off-site, the Government Accountability Office said in its report last week on waste disposal at the site. As of February 2020, the Department […]

Management at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has confirmed nine new cases of COVID-19 since Friday. Bosses at the former plutonium production facility were informed of the latest batch of positive cases, seven, on Monday, according to an advisory posted on a DOE website run by the site services contractor. The […]

Federal staffer Allison Finelli has been officially appointed as deputy chief of staff at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management since acting in that capacity since March. The promotion was announced in a Tuesday email to staff at the nuclear cleanup branch by William (Ike) White, the senior advisor for the Environmental Management […]

The Huntington Ingalls Industries-led contractor in charge of legacy cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico won roughly 82% of its total potential fee and 72% of its subjective fee in a recently-released scorecard from the Department of Energy.  Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B) Los Alamos took home $8.4 million out of […]

There are currently 473 active cases of COVID-19 within the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup complex as of close of business on Wednesday, which is up significantly from the past two weeks. The latest figure was provided in a Thursday email from a DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson. The tally represents a jump […]

For the second time in two years, the Department of Energy is looking at shipping certain radioactive waste, now classified as high-level, from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to a commercial disposal site out of state. The DOE said in a Wednesday press release it will issue a Federal Register notice within days […]

Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, the Jacobs-led cleanup contractor at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, earned 69% of its overall potential fee but less than half of its fee resulting from the Department of Energy’s subjective ratings during fiscal 2020. Meanwhile, Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services earned 87% of its potential fee for running the depleted uranium […]

With the Donald Trump administration coming to an end in less than a week, longtime cleanup hand Todd Shrader is expected to take over as acting head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management office until President-electric Joe Biden has his own people in place. An industry source on Monday said to expect […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management still has much work to do on its end state contracting model in order to truly drive nuclear cleanup projects toward completion, according to a National Academy of Sciences report released Monday. The Environmental Management (EM) office should set up results on intermediate end state milestones midway […]

For the second time in two years, the Department of Energy is looking at shipping certain radioactive waste, now classified as high-level, from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to a commercial disposal site out of state. The DOE said in a Wednesday press release it will issue a Federal Register notice within days […]

Federal staffer Allison Finelli has been officially appointed as deputy chief of staff at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management since acting in that capacity since March. The promotion was announced in a Tuesday email to staff at the nuclear cleanup branch by William (Ike) White, the senior advisor for the Environmental Management […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management still has much work to do on its end state contracting model in order to truly drive nuclear cleanup projects toward completion, according to a National Academy of Sciences report released Monday. The Environmental Management (EM) office should set up results on intermediate end state milestones midway […]

With the Donald Trump administration coming to an end in a little over a week, longtime cleanup hand Todd Shrader is expected to take over as acting head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management office until President-electric Joe Biden has his own people in place. An industry source on Monday said to […]

The Huntington Ingalls Industries-led contractor in charge of legacy cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico won roughly 82% of its total potential fee and 72% of its subjective fee in a recently-released scorecard from the Department of Energy.  Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B) Los Alamos took home $8.4 million out of […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), whose district includes the Oak Ridge Site, has tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, there are a batch of new cases at the Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C. Fleischmann announced in a Sunday press release that he has tested positive for the coronavirus. “Today, I learned that I have tested […]

Here’s some of the news Weapons Complex Monitor tracked over the last two weeks during the Exchange Monitor’s publishing break for the winter holidays. Navarro-led Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration this week began the process of taking over the Department of Energy’s 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Located in the 200-West […]

Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation, the liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, took home almost $64 million or 98% of its total potential fee for work done over an 18-month period ending Sept. 30, 2020. The contractor was rated “very good” on its subjective fee as determined by […]

The U.S. Civilian Board of Contract Appeals has ruled the Department of Energy was wrong to disallow $16.6 million in costs incurred over several years by parent companies of Mission Support Alliance. In a ruling dated Dec. 17, the appeals board held the agreement between DOE and the Leidos-led infrastructure services contractor team at the […]

The Department of Energy and Bechtel announced Wednesday in an online ceremony that construction of facilities needed to start processing low-activity tank waste are complete at the $17-billion vitrification plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The direct-feed low-activity waste (DFLAW) facilities at the Waste Treatment Plant include a new Analytical Laboratory, the new […]

As of close of business Wednesday, nuclear cleanup sites managed by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management had 381 active cases of COVID-19 scattered across its workforce, a spokesperson for the office said this week. The figure, while still high, is down 50 from the 431 active cases cited on Dec.31. As for […]

Almost as soon as he graduated from Connecticut College — where he played basketball with the guy who’d go on to found Beyond Meat: the plant-based hamburger-ish patty — Mark Fallon started working for the Department of Energy. “I started my career at DOE,” Fallon told Weapons Complex Monitor. “I worked in the secretary’s office […]

Just before Christmas, and months after two losing teams protested the award, the Department of Energy canned a $13-billion liquid-waste cleanup contract awarded in May to a BWX Technologies-led team. It is the second time in two years that a BWXT-led team has seen DOE cancel a major procurement which it had originally won. In […]

As part of the omnibus spending package signed Dec. 27 by President Donald Trump, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will receive almost $7.6 billion for fiscal 2021, which is $131 million above its funding level for the 2020 budget year that ended Sept. 30, 2020. It is also about 22% more than […]

In the omnibus spending bill signed this week, Congress appropriated $30 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration to continue cleaning up a downtown Seattle building that has been vacant for more than a year after an agency contractor botched the removal of a cesium-137 blood irradiator from the premises and contaminated the facility. Together […]