Cleanup & Remediation

A new legally binding deadline requires cesium and strontium capsules at the Hanford Site in Washington state to be moved to dry storage by August 2025, though some key stakeholders argued the work should done sooner. The Department of Energy and its regulators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington state Department of Ecology, […]

The Energy Department is reviewing bid proposals for the potential $150 million contract for occupational medical services at the Hanford Site in Washington state, an agency official told an industry gathering Thursday in Knoxville, Tenn. The bid deadline closed in August for the successor contract to contract now held by HPM Corp. of Kennewick, Wash. […]

The federal government has lifted spending restrictions placed on Bechtel National purchasing after it addressed issues raised in a routine audit by the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency. In an Oct. 5 announcement, Bechtel said it received notification on Oct. 1 that its purchasing system had been reapproved for subcontracting activities, including at the Waste […]

The Energy Department has apparently decided having two contractors running the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state is like having too many cooks in the kitchen. The department hopes to improve productivity by not having two contractors “competing for priorities because they are working on the same equipment,” Dawn MacDonald, DOE Office […]

The Department of Energy has paused rollout of a solicitation for a 10-year, $14-billion contract to manage the Savannah River Site for most of the next decade, pending an internal review that could radically reshape the nuclear-weapon mission at the South Carolina facility. The agency announced the move around 8 p.m. Friday ahead of the […]

The Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup officials are optimistic an overhaul of the contracting process will enable some sites undergoing environmental remediation to “leapfrog the current life-cycle baseline, and get us to done-done quicker,” a senior official said Wednesday. The Office of Environmental Management (EM), with a current-year budget exceeding $7 billion, is responsible for remediation […]

The Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) resumed operations Tuesday following a nearly two-month outage for routine maintenance. Meanwhile, the site’s Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU), which treats a different form of liquid waste, will remain offline until mid-October. Both facilities were shut down on Aug. 8 for maintenance, which meant liquid […]

The state of Washington and the Department of Energy have jointly asked a federal judge for an extension of two milestones for retrieval of radioactive tank waste set in the court-enforced consent decree governing cleanup of the Hanford Site. Washington state sued the federal agency in 2008, asking a federal judge to set new deadlines […]

Workers at the Hanford Site are preparing to start filling the PUREX Plant’s second waste storage tunnel with concrete-like grout as soon as this week, after the Washington state Department of Ecology on Sept. 28 approved the interim stabilization work to prevent collapse. In May 2017, there was a partial collapse of the older and […]

A $40 million project to refurbish all 119 miles of paved roads at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is on pace for completion by fiscal 2023, with work on the last of three major roads expected to wrap up by 2020. In an update on the project last week, Thomas Johnson, the Department […]

The Energy Department believes the central Bear Creek Valley is the best place within the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) in Tennessee to develop a new 2.2-million-cubic yard waste disposal facility – due in part to its geology and groundwater flow conditions. Because the same valley is home to Oak Ridge’s existing Environmental Management Waste Management […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management expects to award a trio of big contracts, two of them re-awards following protests by losing bidders, by the end of the year. The department hopes this month to reissue both the liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and a consolidated technical […]

The Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup officials are optimistic an overhaul of the contracting process will enable some sites undergoing environmental remediation to “leapfrog the current life-cycle baseline, and get us to done-done quicker,” a senior official said Wednesday. The Office of Environmental Management (EM), with a current-year budget exceeding $7 billion, is responsible for remediation […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management expects to award a trio of big contracts, two of them re-awards following protests by losing bidders, by the end of the year. The department hopes this month to reissue both the liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and a consolidated technical […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not be published Monday in observance of Columbus Day. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Tuesday, Oct. 9.

The Energy Department believes the Central Bear Creek Valley is the best place within the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) in Tennessee to develop a new 2.2-million-cubic yard waste disposal facility – due in part to its geology and groundwater flow conditions. Because the same valley is home to Oak Ridge’s existing Environmental Management Waste Management […]

Idaho Falls-based nuclear medicine specialist International Isotopes on Tuesday said it had been awarded over 12 distinct contracts worth a total of $1.6 million for recovery of radiation sources in the United States and abroad. The Department of Energy issued all the contracts, with the work largely to wrap up within half a year, according […]

The Energy Department has scheduled a public information meeting for 5 p.m. today on the new Environmental Management Disposal Facility planned for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The Energy Department is proposing a 2.2 million-cubic-yard landfill site on federal land in Bear Creek Valley, according to a notice for the 90-minute meeting at the […]

Two Richland, Wash.-based contractors serving the Energy Department and other federal clients have formed a joint venture to promote a material sorting technology that will be shown off this week. The two small businesses, Federal Engineers & Constructors (FE&C) and ISO-Pacific Remediation Technologies, said Sept. 19 the venture, Innovative Remediation & Integrated Systems LLC (IRIS), […]

Workers at the Hanford Site are preparing to start filling the PUREX Plant’s second waste storage tunnel with concrete-like grout as soon as this week, after the Washington state Department of Ecology on Friday approved the interim stabilization work to prevent collapse. In May 2017, there was a partial collapse of the older and shorter […]

By John Stang The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has settled on a plan for cleanup of radiologically contaminated areas of the West Lake Landfill in Missouri, which it says will save a year of work and cost $30 million less than the previously anticipated approach. Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Thursday signed the amended […]

A federal judge has scheduled a hearing for Oct. 17 to addressing scheduling and other matters in a former employee’s discrimination lawsuit against the liquid waste manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The hope is to expedite progress in the case filed more than two years ago, according to […]

Bechtel National is bringing on a new project director for the Waste Treatment Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, employees were told on Sept. 21. Brian Reilly, who joined the project last December, will be replaced by Valerie McCain. Reilly has been reassigned to the position of project director for […]

When President Donald Trump signed a multiagency appropriations package Sept. 21, it assured the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management about $7.2 billion in funding for the 2019 fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The DOE-funding “minibus,” approved by Congress earlier this month, provides the largest budget for the department’s nuclear cleanup office since it received […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday released a draft request for proposals for the Hanford Site Central Plateau Cleanup Contract that takes a new approach to the scope of work at the cleanup job in Washington state. The agency is asking bidders to indicate what environmental cleanup activities they could complete given 10 years, including […]

After a delay of more than a year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday gave Jacobs Field Services North America the go-ahead to begin cleanup at the Shallow Land Disposal Area near Pittsburgh. The Army Corps awarded the $350 million radiological remediation contract to the Jacobs subsidiary in April 2017, then put it […]

Less than two months after stepping aside as the No. 2 official in the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office, James Owendoff is taking a new job within the agency. Starting next week, Owendoff will be DOE-wide chief risk officer, a senior executive position within the office of the Chief Financial Officer John Vonglis. He formally […]

The Department of Energy has denied a local advisory group’s request to make treated liquid waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The request, submitted in July by the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB), asked the Energy Department to recharacterize […]

The House of Representatives passed in voice vote Tuesday a bill to reauthorize the Department of Energy’s West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state, legislation approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July. The amended version of the bill would immediately hike cleanup funding to $75 million annually through fiscal 2028 and […]

The Department of Energy is accepting registrations through Thursday for its next Office of Environmental Management (EM) Business Opportunities Forum, slated for Oct. 4 in Knoxville, Tenn. While there is no fee to attend the event, scheduled from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Knoxville Convention Center, participants must register in advance with Mary Wilson […]