Cleanup & Remediation

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management plans closer oversight of the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project after workers at the Utah site knowingly falsified certain records. Contractor North Wind Group has taken disciplinary action against the employees involved, a DOE spokesperson said in a Wednesday email, adding that more business ethics […]

The deadline has passed for revised proposals from the three teams that bid on the contract for liquid waste management services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to industry sources. The Energy Department requested the updated bids after one of the losing teams successfully protested the October 2017 award […]

The Department of Energy issued a preliminary notice of violation to Hanford Site contractor Bechtel National on Wednesday for a 2016 worker injury at the Waste Treatment Plant construction site. The incident occurred on Nov. 4, 2016, while a piping system for cooling water for the plant was being vented and filled in preparation for […]

Quality assurance problems continue to afflict the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) being built at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Tuesday. Some of the same quality assurance issues previously identified during a 2012 partial suspension of construction of the facility and a 2014 managed improvement plan […]

After reviewing a reply from the Energy Department this month, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is still not satisfied the agency and contractor Bechtel National are doing enough to verify the safety of structural steel used in construction of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “It’s completely unacceptable that the […]

Four 55-gallon drums of radioactive waste ejected their lids due to excessive pressure on April 11 at the Accelerated Retrieval Project No. 5 (ARP 5) facility, Idaho Site cleanup contractor Flour Idaho confirmed this week. The Energy Department and the contractor had both indicated last week at least one drum, and possibly more, had been […]

The Hanford Site’s occupational medicine services provider earned 91.75 percent of the fee available for fiscal 2017, the Department of Energy announced last week. Kennewick, Wash.-based HPM Corp., a small, woman-owned business founded in 2001, earned $311,950 of the available $340,000. The contractor’s performance was rated about the same as in fiscal 2016. Then it […]

In court papers Wednesday, the Department of Energy doubled down on its argument that the contractor on an over-budget plutonium-disposal plant targeted for cancellation contorted the language of its deal in an attempt to convince a federal judge the company should keep $20 million in contested fees. The $20 million is only a small part […]

After reviewing a reply from the Energy Department this month, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is still not satisfied the agency and contractor Bechtel National are doing enough to verify safety of structural steel used in construction of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “It’s completely unacceptable that the Department […]

Contractor Parsons’ “degrading performance” while testing and commissioning the Savannah River Site’s $2 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) could push its start of operations back by several months, according to a notice of concern from the Department of Energy. Rather than the long-anticipated beginning of operations in December, the facility now is expected to […]

A House Armed Services subcommittee is seeking briefings every six months from the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM) regarding ongoing problems with toxic vapors at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “Over the past several years, many workers have reported suspicious odors and subsequent health effects,” the HASC strategic forces subcommittee said in […]

The Energy Department has removed about 57 percent of the tailings from an old uranium concentrate production mill 3 miles northwest of Moab, Utah, according to the latest available figures. At the end of March, the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project had moved about 9.06 million tons of the estimated 16 million […]

The deadline has passed for revised proposals from the three teams that bid on the contract for liquid waste management services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to industry sources. The Energy Department requested the updated bids after one of the losing teams successfully protested the October 2017 award […]

Citing declining health due to multiple sclerosis, and the need for 24-hour assistance, one of the men who defrauded the federal government while working for the Savannah River Site MOX project is hoping to avoid a prison sentence of up to five years. Phillip Thompson is instead requesting five years of probation, with the special […]

Quality assurance problems continue to afflict the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) being built at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report Tuesday. “The project has faced persistent challenges, including quality assurance problems that have delayed it by decades and more than tripled its costs, to nearly $17 […]

The Department of Energy has not fully analyzed the risk of certain types of accidents at the Idaho National Laboratory’s Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). In a March 27 letter to DOE, the DNFSB cited weaknesses in the safety planning conducted for the IWTU: These types […]

Officials conducting a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study of technology development within the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management will visit the Hanford Site area in Washington state today and Tuesday. An hourlong overview of Hanford is planned for 7:30 a.m. today at the Red Lion Hotel Richland Hanford House, 802 […]

Washington Closure Hanford and the Department of Justice received a final extension Friday to seal a settlement agreement in a civil lawsuit alleging the former Hanford Site contractor knowingly awarded small business subcontracts to front companies. Judge Sal Mendoza Jr. stayed the case in U.S. District Court in Eastern Washington until a June 8 hearing, […]

The public comment period on the scope of a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) for the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) in New York state has been extended by a month, to May 25. The deadline for comments had been today. The extension is being announced in an April 23 notice in the Federal Register […]

The Hanford Site’s occupational medicine services provider earned 91.75 percent of the fee available for fiscal 2017, the Department of Energy announced Friday. Kennewick, Wash.-based HPM Corp., a small, woman-owned business founded in 2001, earned $311,950 of the available $340,000. The contractor’s performance was rated about the same as in fiscal 2016. Then it earned […]

About two months after he left the federal ranks, the former top Department of Energy official at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., joined Atkins in a new role created for him. Jack Craig, who in February retired as manager of DOE’s Savannah River Site office after three years in that role and over […]

Following a five-month pause, plutonium downblending resumed in mid-March at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The mission involves dilution of 6 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable, non-pit plutonium, and not the 34 metric tons of material intended to be processed by Savannah River’s MOX program. Operations began in September 2016, […]

The Department of Energy said Thursday it plans in 15 to 45 days to release a draft request for proposals for the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state. A presolicitation conference, site tour, and one-on-one sessions are tentatively scheduled for late May or June, DOE said as it released a […]

The Energy Department’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, Nuclear Waste Partnership, is likely to award a contract for construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System in May. That should be followed shortly afterward by a groundbreaking, with project completion expected in 2021, DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager […]

Declining profit margins, in some cases just 2 to 4 percent, are a major reason for the wave of mergers and acquisitions by companies that do business in the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup sector, a senior executive with one contractor said last week. Contractors can expect to receive 5 to 7 percent if everything […]

A “bulging drum” of non-radiological waste resulted in a partial evacuation of the Sigma Complex at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on Monday. The Los Alamos Fire Department responded to the Sigma facility, on the main LANL campus, at about 2:30 p.m. Monday, a lab spokesperson said by email. The plastic drum […]

The Energy Communities Alliance got some good news last month when the omnibus budget for fiscal 2018 kept in place existing Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) agreements, ECA Director of Nuclear Energy Programs Kara Colton said Monday. The budget does call for a report on how the Energy Department formulates PILT payments to communities […]

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency plans to hold the U.S. Energy Department to its promise to dig up and consolidate contamination plumes and waste landfills at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. That is according to state EPA Director Craig Butler, in an April 6 letter to James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE’s Office […]

Honeywell Aerospace, the division of that diversified contractor with major contracts throughout the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex, saw sales and profits rise by about 10 percent in the first quarter of 2018. Excluding costs related mostly related to foreign currency transactions, quarterly revenue for the Aerospace segment — which include the company’s work […]

The U.S. Department of Justice appears to be running out of patience after failing to reach a settlement agreement by a deadline Friday in a lawsuit with Washington Closure Hanford, a former Hanford Site prime cleanup contractor. The Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against Washington Closure, alleging it knowingly awarded small business subcontracts […]