Cleanup & Remediation

A group led by Navarro Research and Engineering is expected to start its transition Jan. 4 as the new contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, a source said Tuesday. Hanford’s DOE site manager, Brian Vance, said last week during an appearance before the Hanford Advisory Board to expect the new […]

The draft Record of Decision on a proposed 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is being delayed once again, with the new publication target being next July. The document was previously scheduled for publication this week by the DOE Office of Environmental Management at Oak Ridge. But spokespeople […]

An article in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“Meeting on LANL Stormwater Scheduled for This Week,” Dec. 15, 2020] should have identified Huntington Ingalls Industries as the lead partner in Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B). An article in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“Law Pausing Ohio Nuclear Plant Subsidies To Be Heard Tuesday,” Dec. 14, […]

The Department of Energy’s manager for the Hanford Site in Washington state expects the stabilization of three crumbling underground waste structures near the Plutonium Finishing Plant to be shored up by the end of January. “We expect to complete that project by the end of January,” Hanford’s site manager Brian Vance told a meeting of […]

The Department of Energy and its legacy cleanup contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory will discuss 2021 plans for improved stormwater runoff around the lab during a public meeting Wednesday evening. It is the second of two required semiannual meetings by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management at the federal complex and remediation contractor, Newport […]

Fourteen new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state over the weekend, putting the site’s cumulative case count at more than 500 since the pandemic hit the U.S. in January. Eight workers at the former plutonium production facility informed management Friday they had tested positive for […]

The New Mexico Environment Department is still waiting on the Department of Energy to provide more details on the planned remediation of contamination discovered earlier this year on a public road outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The preliminary screening plan that will determine if the hazardous constituents at the 28-acre DP Road site are […]

Seventy-four employees have agreed to take a voluntary buyout from the decommissioning and demolition contractor at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth announced the results of its Self-Select Voluntary Separation Program in a Wednesday email statement. The voluntary buyout package includes a severance based on years of service and the applicable […]

After reviewing its options, cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho has decided to pay the $580,700 civil penalty issued by the Department of Energy over an April 2018 explosion at the Idaho National Laboratory where four 55-gallon drums overheated and blew off their lids spewing radioactive sludge. “Fluor Idaho chose not to contest the findings” in the […]

The Department of Energy said Thursday that Paducah, Ky.-based incumbent Swift & Staley has won the new $160-million Paducah Infrastructure Support Services Contract. The contract runs about five years with a 60-day transition period, a 34-month base period and 24-month option period, DOE said in the press release announcing the deal. The transition period presumably […]

As of this week, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has seen 2,009 members of its workforce contract COVID-19 so far in 2020. The current number of federal and contractor workers infected with the coronavirus is 477, a spokesperson for Environmental Management (EM) said Thursday. At the Hanford Site in Washington state, largest […]

Many members of the Hanford Advisory Board seemed taken aback Thursday by a Department of Energy proposal to add six more slots to the 32-member panel charged with drafting policy recommendations for cleanup of the former plutonium production facility in Washington state. About a dozen Hanford Advisory Board members, who spoke during an online meeting, […]

Seventy-four employees have agreed to take a voluntary buyout from the decommissioning and demolition contractor at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth announced the results of its Self-Select Voluntary Separation Program in a Wednesday email statement. The voluntary buyout package includes a severance based on years of service and the applicable […]

The Department of Energy’s manager for the Hanford Site declined Wednesday to say how many employees have tested positive for the coronavirus so far this year at the former plutonium production complex in Washington state. “I report those numbers through headquarters now, and there is a more formal reporting process at the headquarters level,” in […]

The advisory board to the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state meets today at 9 a.m. Pacific Time and will hear updates on Tri-Party Agreement cleanup plans. Brian Vance, manager of DOE’s Richland Operations Office and Office of River Protection at the former plutonium production facility, is among the speakers scheduled to address […]

Bid proposals for the new Infrastructure Support Services Contract at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio are due by 4 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday. Portsmouth Mission Alliance, a team made up of an affiliate of Idaho-based North Wind Group and Swift & Staley, holds the current $117-million business that began in March 2016 […]

After reviewing its options, cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho has decided to pay the $580,700 civil penalty issued by the Department of Energy over an April 2018 explosion at the Idaho National Laboratory where four 55-gallon drums overheated and blew off their lids spewing radioactive sludge. “Fluor Idaho chose not to contest the findings” in the […]

Twelve more employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state reported to management that they have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an online notice posted Friday. The latest batch of positive tests showed up on the employee alerts section of a DOE emergency operations website at Hanford operated by the […]

An environmental advocacy group’s report that questions safety compliance at the Perma-Fix Northwest waste treatment facility located just outside the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site is “very misleading,” a company spokesman said this week.  The report last week by Hanford Challenge claims the subsidiary of Atlanta-based Perma-Fix has “a checkered and worrisome history of environmental […]

Four weeks after election day, first-term incumbent Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) has clinched a 333-vote victory over California Assemblywoman Christy Smith (D) in the state’s 25th congressional district. The race concluded this week as Smith conceded a recount was unlikely to overturn the verdict, the Santa Clara Signal and other state newspapers reported. “We exhausted […]

The total number of active cases of COVID-19 at nuclear cleanup sites overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management remained high this week at 282, which is still lower than the 298 active cases during Thanksgiving week, a spokesperson said Thursday.  Active, reported cases were in the double digits as recently as […]

DOE could soon award the first standalone management and operations contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory, the manager of the DOE Savannah River Site office said this week. In addition to announcing the new stand-alone contractor for management of the laboratory, which is focused on nuclear-cleanup science and technology, DOE could announce the next […]

A document obtained by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing indicates the Department of Energy’s environmental contractor at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio has confirmed at least 73 cases of COVID-19 so far during the pandemic, with three of those reported in recent days. The document summarizes COVID-19 data compiled through Tuesday by Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, the decommissioning […]

Four weeks after election day, first-term incumbent Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) has clinched a 333-vote victory over California Assemblywoman Christy Smith (D) in the state’s 25th congressional district. The race concluded Monday as Smith conceded a recount was unlikely to overturn the verdict, the Santa Clara Signal and other state newspapers reported. “We exhausted every […]

Another 16 workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state informed management Monday they have tested positive for the coronavirus. The latest COVID-19 cases were disclosed on the emergency operations website run by contractor Mission Support Alliance at the former plutonium production complex. The unofficial tally of cases is now 244 based […]

The top boss for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina said Monday that major contractor awards could be made soon and there have been “somewhere north of 700” total confirmed cases of the coronavirus at the complex so far. “We continue to get COVID cases […]

An environmental advocacy group focused on the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site issued a report  last week that questions safety compliance at a commercial waste treatment facility, Perma-Fix Northwest, located just outside the former plutonium production reservation. The report by Hanford Challenge claims the subsidiary of Atlanta-based Perma-Fix has “a checkered and worrisome history of […]

The management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico learned of 13 new cases of COVID-19 at the disposal facility just prior to Thanksgiving. Nuclear Waste Partnership, DOE’s prime contractor at the transuranic waste disposal site, reported the latest set of infections in a press release last […]

Potential bidders on the new Infrastructure Support Services Contract at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio can perhaps take time to watch football and eat turkey over Thanksgiving, as the agency has extended the deadline from Dec. 1 until Dec. 10. The DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) on Tuesday issued an amendment […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not publish on Thursday, Nov. 26, in observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Look for the next edition in your inbox on Nov. 30.