Cleanup & Remediation

The U.S. Department of Justice on Feb. 8 filed a civil lawsuit against Hanford Site contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA), accusing it of fraud through false claims and kickbacks from 2010 to 2015. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington also names Lockheed Martin Services Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Lockheed executive […]

A motorist who died in an automobile crash inside the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Feb. 7 was not an employee of the Department of Energy or its contractors. “It wasn’t connected to our work,” a DOE spokesperson said by email. “It does appear that it was just a tragic accident — one […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office sent a valentine to prospective contractors Thursday, issuing two major requests for proposals at the Hanford Site in Washington state. In releasing final procurement notices for the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract and the Tank Closure Contract, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) met a 45-day deadline it set […]

The need to develop and win regulatory approval for new “oversized boxes” to move radioactive waste to the Idaho National Laboratory was central to the Energy Department’s decision against keeping the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) open past this year. After considering sustaining operations at the facility open after it finishes its mission to […]

The Department of Energy needs to be more realistic in tracking and reporting progress toward environmental milestones at its nuclear cleanup sites, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Thursday. “We found that DOE didn’t accurately track or report whether milestones were met, missed, or postponed. We also found that sites continually renegotiate milestones they are […]

A motorist who died in an automobile crash inside the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Feb. 7 was not an employee of the Department of Energy or its contractors. “It wasn’t connected to our work,” a DOE spokesperson said by email. “It does appear that it was just a tragic accident — one […]

Fewer workers than Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth (FBP) hoped took advantage of a voluntary separation package offered for contractor personnel at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. After offering the package in December for up to 75 employees at the former gaseous diffusion plant, the decommissioning vendor said this week less than two-thirds of that number […]

By John Stang The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 8 directed the potentially responsible parties for environmental remediation of the West Lake Landfill in Missouri to study potential groundwater contamination at the site. The potentially responsible parties are Bridgeton Landfill LLC, Cotter. Corp. LLC, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Under a decision handed […]

The manager of the Department of Energy Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site, Brian Vance, has been selected as acting manager of the Hanford Richland Operations Office. This is the first time since the Office of River Protection (ORP) was established in 1998 that there has been one top manager for the entire […]

A lawsuit filed by local landowners claims negligence by Boeing and Southern California Edison is partly to blame for a wildfire that charred almost 100,000 acres of land in Los Angeles and Ventura counties in California. The complaint against the airplane manufacturer and the electric power company was filed Feb. 5 in California Superior Court […]

Fewer workers than Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth (FBP) hoped took advantage of a voluntary separation package offered for contractor personnel at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. After offering the package in December for up to 75 employees at the former gaseous diffusion plant, the decommissioning vendor said this week less than two-thirds of that number […]

Department of Energy contractor Parsons recently completed construction of a $13 million facility that will expedite treatment of liquid salt waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Parsons announced Monday it has finished building the Next Generation Solvent (NGS) facility and has it in operational standby, awaiting startup of the site’s Salt Waste […]

A motorist who died in an automobile crash inside the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Thursday was not an employee of the Department of Energy or its contractors. “It wasn’t connected to our work,” a DOE spokesperson said by email. “It does appear that it was just a tragic accident — one of […]

The Wednesday meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board in Richland, Wash., has been canceled due to bad weather. Heavy snowfall across Washington state and a forecast for freezing rain prompted the cancellation. The meeting had already been reduced to a single day administrative session because the partial shutdown of the federal government in January prevented […]

AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation hired 378 new workers in 2018, and expects to bring on a similar number of employees this year under its liquid waste contract at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Energy Department cleanup sites such as Savannah River have been pushing hiring programs in recent years to offset […]

Five sessions on federal environmental cleanup contracting have been scheduled for the 45th Waste Management Symposia from March 3 through 7 in Phoenix. Business sessions on the agenda are: A Monday, March 4, session on small business contracting to provide an overview of programs within the Department of Energy’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business […]

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday filed a civil lawsuit against Hanford Site contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA), accusing it of fraud through false claims and kickbacks from 2010 to 2015. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington also names Lockheed Martin Services Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Lockheed executive Jorge […]

Heavy snowfall has stopped most work at the Hanford Site in Eastern Washington state. Day, swing, and graveyard shifts have been canceled Monday for the third successive day for workers not designated essential to safety or security. The cancellations started with the swing and graveyard shifts Friday night. By Saturday, key highways leading to the […]

The waiting game for re-award of a multibillion-dollar contract for liquid waste management at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina might be over soon, an AECOM executive said Tuesday. “We expect the Savannah River Site to be awarded any day now,” Chief Operating Officer Randall Wotring said during the company’s quarterly […]

The Government Accountability Office says there is an opportunity for the Department of Energy to balance the cost and risks posed by 149 single-shell tanks containing radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. A section a Jan. 29 GAO report, on growing liability costs for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, said the agency […]

The state of Idaho has fined the Energy Department more than $5.3 million for failure to begin operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory. The $5.3 million figure represents the total penalties as of Jan. 19, Natalie Creed, hazardous waste unit manager at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), […]

Two Tennessee-based firms, RSI Entech and Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve), appear set to keep their technical support business for the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) through the end of the year. Meanwhile, a source said Thursday the Energy Department appears to be moving ahead with plans for a consolidated technical and administrative support […]

Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering brought in $3.1 billion in revenue during the quarter ended Dec. 31, 73 percent higher than the $1.8 billion reported for the same period one year earlier Jacobs, which has a wide footprint in the Energy Department nuclear cleanup complex through subsidiary CH2M, reported earnings Tuesday for the first quarter of its […]

Doug Shoop, manager of the Department of Energy’s Richland Operations Office at the Hanford Site in Washington state, will retire from federal employment on Feb. 16. Shoop has led one of the two DOE offices overseeing the massive cleanup job at Hanford since July 2016. Brian Vance remains manager of the Office of River Protection. […]

The Energy Department has picked up a two-year option to keep North Wind Solutions in charge of the Transuranic Waste Processing Center at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee through October 2020. An Energy Department spokesperson confirmed Monday the department in October exercised its option to the original three-year base period. The entire five-year agreement […]

Allison Finelli, a staffer with the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management in Washington, D.C., recently accepted a 120-day detail as acting chief of staff at the Hanford Site’s Office of River Protection. In her interim role, Finelli will report to ORP Manager Brian Vance, sources said Thursday. She will serve as a primary aide […]

The Energy Department on Thursday issued the final request for proposals for the 222-S Laboratory Contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The RFP was posted on the DOE Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center website for the procurement. Questions on the solicitation are due before noon Eastern time on Feb. 28 and should be […]

More than 45 people registered for the Jan. 24 site tour and industry briefing on the Tank Closure Contract at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, including some major contractors in the weapons complex. Companies represented at the gathering included: AECOM; AVANTech; Bechtel; Booz Allen Hamilton; BWX Technologies; Columbia Energy and Environmental […]

The projected cost of remaining cleanup at the Hanford Site has dramatically increased over the last three years, according to a Department of Energy report made public on Feb. 1. The 2019 Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule and Cost report estimates the remaining cost of environmental remediation of the former plutonium production complex in Washington state […]

The Government Accountability Office says there is an opportunity for the Department of Energy to balance the cost and risks posed by 149 single-shell tanks containing radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. A section a Jan. 29 GAO report, on growing liability costs for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, said the agency […]