Archive

Cleanup & Remediation

Coverage of DOE-EM’s multi-billion-dollar effort to address Cold War and Manhattan Project nuclear legacy waste, including tank waste treatment, site remediation, and decommissioning at Hanford, Savannah River, Oak Ridge, and other major sites.

  • Centrus Should Finish Oak Ridge Decommissioning Contract This Fall

    Centrus Energy should wrap up $15 million worth of decontamination and decommissioning at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee by Sept. 30, according to a financial filing Monday. Last September, DOE issued the contract to the Maryland-based company to prepare the K-1600 building for demolition. Centrus leased the K-1600 building to further test […]

  • Portsmouth Contractor Takes Another Go at Voluntary Separations

    After its first effort fell short of its goal, Department of Energy cleanup contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth is reviving its voluntary separation program in hopes of finding 29 more workers ready to take early departure. The decontamination and decommissioning contractor for the Portsmouth Site in Ohio in December first issued its offer in hopes of persuading […]

  • Perry Still Wary of Using Uranium Barter to Help Fund Nuclear Cleanup

    Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggested Tuesday he is ready to again suspend his agency’s past practice of bartering excess government uranium to help pay for environmental remediation at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. “I agree with you,” Perry told Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a vocal opponent of the practice, during a Senate Energy and Natural […]

  • DOE Cites CH2M Over Hanford Radiological Contamination Incidents

    The Department of Energy on Monday issued preliminary notices of violation to CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. over repeated incidents of radiological contamination spread at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Radioactive particles were found outside the established radiological control boundary of the Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition site in 2017 and 2018. The Energy Department […]

  • Judge: Racial Bias Possible in Savannah River Contractor’s Hiring Decision

    A federal judge in South Carolina said on March 28 that race might have been a factor in why a laid-off employee with the liquid waste contractor for the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site was not rehired for a separate job five years ago. Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett added that, while Savannah River Remediation (SRR) […]

  • Centrus Should Complete Oak Ridge Decommissioning Contract This Fall

    Centrus Energy should wrap up $15 million worth of decontamination and decommissioning at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee by Sept. 30, according to a financial filing Monday. Last September, DOE issued the contract to the Maryland-based company to prepare the K-1600 building for demolition. Centrus leased space in K-1600 to further test […]

  • Technical Support Services Contracts Extended at DOE Portsmouth, Paducah Sites

    The Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) has extended the contracts for three technical support services providers, potentially through the end of the year, an agency spokesperson confirmed Monday. In a notice released in January, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management indicated it could push back the expiration of the contracts held by the three […]

  • Sellafield Operator Fined £380,000 for Plutonium Exposure Incident

    A court in the United Kingdom on Tuesday fined the government-owned entity that operates the Sellafield nuclear site £380,000 ($500,742) for a 2017 incident in which an employee was exposed to plutonium. Sellafield Ltd., owned by the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, pleaded guilty to violating the nation’s 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act. Along […]

  • Senator Questions Planned DOE Uranium Enrichment Contract

    A New Mexico lawmaker questioned Tuesday why the Energy Department plans to issue a $115 million sole-source contract for Centrus Energy to build new uranium enrichment equipment at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) posed the question to Energy Secretary Rick Perry during a hearing DOE’s budget request for fiscal 2020. Heinrich […]

  • Perry Still Skeptical of Using Uranium Barter to Help Fund Cleanup

    Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggested Tuesday he is ready to again suspend his agency’s past practice of bartering excess government uranium to help pay for environmental remediation at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. “I agree with you,” Perry told Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a vocal opponent of the practice, during a Senate Energy and Natural […]

  • DOE Cites CH2M Over Hanford Radiological Contamination Incidents

    The Department of Energy on Monday issued preliminary notices of violation to CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. over repeated incidents of radiological contamination spread at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Radioactive particles were found outside the established radiological control boundary of the Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition site in 2017 and 2018. The Energy Department […]

  • Portsmouth Contractor Takes Another Go at Voluntary Separations

    After its first effort fell short of its goal, Department of Energy cleanup contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth is reviving its voluntary separation program in hopes of finding 29 more workers ready to take early departure. The decontamination and decommissioning contractor for the Portsmouth Site in Ohio in December first issued its offer in hopes of persuading […]

  • Savannah River Waste Contract Extended 18 Months

    The Energy Department confirmed Monday it has formally extended Savannah River Remediation’s contract to manage liquid waste operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina through Sept. 30, 2020. The agreement was signed Friday. The extension is valued at roughly $750 million, AECOM said in a Tuesday news release. AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation began […]

  • Fiscal 2020 DOE Budget Envisions Big Savings in ‘End State’ Cleanup Approach

    The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management expects to speed Cold War cleanup by decades and save “$100s of millions” in life-cycle costs, according to the Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2020 budget request. The request, issued in March, would trim the DOE nuclear remediation appropriation, from $7.2 billion in fiscal 2019 to $6.5 billion in […]

  • Waste Facility Outage Hits Perma-Fix Revenue in 4Q

    Perma-Fix Environmental Services said Monday its fourth-quarter revenue slid from $12.6 million in 2017 to $11.7 million in 2018, largely due to the unexpected temporary shutdown of a radioactive waste treatment facility. The roughly two-week outage at the Perma-Fix Northwest facility in Richland, Wash., generated an $800,000 hit to revenue, Perma-Fix CEO Mark Duff said […]

  • Centrus Energy Suffers Revenue Loss for Quarter, Year

    Centrus Energy on Thursday reported a decline in revenue for both the fourth quarter of 2018 and the year in whole. The Bethesda, Md.-based nuclear fuel provider reported revenue of about $84 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, and $193 million for 2018, down respectively from $117 million and $218 million for the corresponding […]

  • Key Senators Cool to Revival of DOE Uranium Barter Program

    The $6.5 billion fiscal 2020 budget request for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would resume the practice of “bartering” excess government uranium in order to defray cleanup costs at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, helped win […]

  • DOE Seeks $100M More for Liquid Waste Treatment at Savannah River

    The Savannah River Site would receive nearly $798 million for liquid tank waste treatment under the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2020 budget request – an uptick of more than $100 million from the current federal budget year. Most other missions under the South Carolina facility’s Environmental Management (EM) program would also get a boost if […]

  • Parsons Faces Up to $33M in Fees for Savannah River Waste Facility Delays

    The Department of Energy could levy up to $33 million in disincentive fees against Parsons Government Services for the contractor’s failure to control costs and meet deadlines at the Savannah River Site’s $2.3 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), the agency said this month. Parsons is pushing back, saying the agency is not acting in […]

  • Washington State Seeks Quick End to Hanford Workers’ Comp Lawsuit

    The state of Washington on March 22 asked a federal judge to rule in its favor without going to trial in the Hanford Site workers’ compensation lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice in December. The Justice Department sued the state in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, saying a new state law that increases […]

  • Appeals Court Denies Petition for Hanford Pension Lawsuit Hearing

    The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has rejected a petition to rehear a case asking that full pension benefits be reinstated for up to 500 people who worked at the Hanford Site in Washington state. It issued the denial Tuesday without comment. Retirees of Lockheed Martin Services Inc. in February petitioned […]

  • Oak Ridge Continues Major Projects Under 2020 Energy Dept. Cleanup Budget Request

    Funding for a key environmental remediation infrastructure project at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee would be sliced by $27 million in the Department of Energy’s budget plan for fiscal 2020. The DOE Office of Environmental Management request at Oak Ridge would decrease by $217 million from the fiscal 2019 level, from $646 million to […]

  • Energy Dept. Explains $400M Funding Drop for Hanford

    The Department of Energy plans in fiscal 2020 to cut funding for cleanup at the Hanford Site in Washington state in part because of progress made and projects completed, according to detailed budget documents released Monday. In total, funding for the two DOE offices at Hanford would drop by more than $400 million from current […]

  • Centrus Energy Suffers Revenue Loss for Quarter, Year

    Centrus Energy on Thursday reported a decline in revenue for both the fourth quarter of 2018 and the year in whole. The Bethesda, Md.-based nuclear fuel provider reported revenue of about $84 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, and $193 million for 2018, down respectively from $117 million and $218 million for the corresponding […]

  • FUSRAP Proposal Driven by DOE, Army Official Says

    A senior U.S. Army official on Wednesday struggled to explain the reasoning for the Trump administration’s plan to return management of a nuclear cleanup program from the Army Corps of Engineers to the Department of Energy. “I really think that DOE wanted that program back, and I can’t answer why on that,” R.D. James, assistant […]

  • Energy Dept. Drove Proposal to Transfer FUSRAP, Army Official Says

    A senior U.S. Army official on Wednesday struggled to explain the reasoning for the Trump administration’s plan to return management of a nuclear cleanup program from the Army Corps of Engineers to the Department of Energy. “I really think that DOE wanted that program back, and I can’t answer why on that,” R.D. James, assistant […]

  • Army Corps Readying St. Louis FUSRAP Solicitation

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week said it should within a couple weeks issue a formal procurement notice for environmental remediation at multiple locations in its St. Louis, Mo., District under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). The Army Corps intends to issue a cost-plus-fixed-fee award for cleanup of hazardous, toxic, […]

  • South Carolina Supreme Court Calls for State to Review Rad Waste License

    The operator of a rural South Carolina disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste has not been practicing sufficient safety protocols to prevent contamination from leaking into groundwater, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. South Carolina’s highest court also found that Chem-Nuclear Systems LLC – the EnergySolutions-owned firm that operates the Barnwell Disposal Facility for the […]

  • Energy Dept. Drove Proposal to Transfer FUSRAP, Army Official Says

    A senior U.S. Army official on Wednesday struggled to explain the reasoning for the Trump administration’s plan to return management of a nuclear cleanup program from the Army Corps of Engineers to the Department of Energy. “I really think that DOE wanted that program back, and I can’t answer why on that,” R.D. James, assistant […]

  • Senators Cool to Revival of DOE Uranium Barter Program

    The $6.5 billion fiscal 2020 budget request for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management would resume the practice of “bartering” excess government uranium in order to defray cleanup costs at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, helped win […]