Cleanup & Remediation

Two informed industry sources said this week that multinational waste management company Veolia has completed its purchase of Piketon, Ohio-based Wastren Advantage for an undisclosed sum. The sources said the deal closed on Jan. 16 following federal approval of the U.S. Department of Energy’s foreign-owned, control, or influence (FOCI) analysis. News of the pending deal […]

French nuclear fuel cycle company New AREVA officially has a new name as of Tuesday: Orano. Orano is the result of a corporate restructuring AREVA initiated in 2016 that late last year resulted in the sale of the company’s nuclear power business to French utility EDF and other entities. What was left was almost entirely […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. The panel has scheduled a 10 a.m. business meeting to consider four Trump administration nominations, including White and Melissa F. Burnison as assistant secretary of energy for […]

The federal government reopened Tuesday following a three-day shutdown, after Senate Democrats largely dropped their opposition to a stopgap budget bill to keep agencies open through Feb. 8. President Donald Trump signed the bill late Monday evening after it quickly passed through both chambers of Congress. The measure funds the Department of Energy (DOE) at […]

Two top officials at the U.S. Energy Department, including one with responsibility for the Office of Environmental Management (EM), are scheduled to testify Tuesday at a House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearing on DOE management and priorities. Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar and Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes are the only two witnesses listed […]

Setting aside the effect of major spinoffs in 2017, Honeywell, a major player in U.S. nuclear weapons and waste programs, saw sizable sales and earnings boosts last year, while profits rose in the Aerospace segment that houses two of its big Department of Energy contracts. Excluding the effects of the spinoffs, Honeywell’s full-year per-share earnings rose […]

A former subcontractor for URS-CH2M Oak Ridge in Tennessee was sentenced this week to 366 days in prison and ordered to repay the Internal Revenue Service more than $2.3 million for a scheme to defraud the federal government. The Justice Department said in a Tuesday news release that Joseph Anthony Armes, II, 38, of Petros, […]

The Department of Energy’s plan for plutonium pit manufacturing will be made clearer in the Donald Trump administration’s 2019 budget request in February, agency officials told members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board last week. That is according to a presentation uploaded to the board’s website Friday after a briefing with Department of Energy […]

Two top officials at the U.S. Energy Department, including one with responsibility for the Office of Environmental Management (EM), are scheduled to testify Tuesday at a House Science, Space, and Technology Committee hearing on DOE management and priorities. Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar and Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes are the only two witnesses listed […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos said Wednesday it has received notice from the Department of Energy to start the transition into its $1.39 billion contract for cleanup services at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The Stoller Newport News Nuclear-BWX Technologies team, which was named as the contract winner in December over two […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management anticipates it will in July issue a draft request for proposals for the Nevada Environmental Services Program at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). That is according to documents posted on a DOE procurement website for industry meetings held Monday and Tuesday in Las Vegas. The Office of […]

An advisory board that monitors environmental management issues at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina wants the Department of Energy to reclassify old liquid waste equipment so it can be shipped off-site for permanent disposal. The SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) voted 22-1 Tuesday to request that DOE investigate whether used liquid waste melters and certain […]

A federal lawsuit accusing the management contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site of forcing a worker to retire due to his sleep apnea should be dismissed, according to a U.S. magistrate judge. Judge Thomas Rogers wrote in his Jan. 19 recommendation that Steven Baxley, a former employee of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions […]

The three responsible parties for cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site in California have asked the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) for two additional months to begin baseline air monitoring. NASA, acting on behalf of Boeing and the Department of Energy, made the request in a Nov. 27 letter to DTSC. […]

AECOM is still awaiting resolution of a $103 million claim filed against the Department of Energy in December 2014 in connection with the changed scope of cleanup at the Separations Process Research Unit in upstate New York. The Los Angeles-based engineering and infrastructure company noted the unresolved claim in its annual report, released on Jan. […]

Having workers use supplied air respirators with air lines that snake across the ground rather than heavy air tanks could be an option for some limited tasks at the Hanford Site’s radioactive waste storage tank farms, according to tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions. Workers have been testing use of air lines, including at […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to vote Tuesday, Jan. 30, on the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. The panel has scheduled a 10 a.m. business meeting to consider four Trump administration nominations, including White and Melissa F. Burnison as assistant secretary of […]

Two informed industry sources said Monday that multinational waste management company Veolia has completed its purchase of Piketon, Ohio-based Wastren Advantage for an undisclosed sum. The sources said the deal closed on Jan. 16 following approval of the U.S. Department of Energy’s foreign-owned, control or influence (FOCI) analysis. News of the pending deal was first […]

Steven Erhart  has been selected as the acting administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, leapfrogging the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch’s highest-ranking career civil servant at the helm until the Senate confirms the White House’s administrator-designate. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced the move Friday at the bottom of a press release acknowledging […]

While there is no official word from the parties, there have been increasing signs in recent days that French waste management company Veolia has completed its purchase of Ohio-based Wastren Advantage. Wastren CEO Steve Moore confirmed the pending deal last August, but the companies since then have largely avoiding discussing the matter in public. Terms of […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions took home $13.1 million in fiscal 2017 fees for the nuclear-weapon work it manages for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. That was roughly 84 percent of the total available $15.7 million fee for the budget year that ended on Sept. 30 of […]

The federal government on Friday was within hours of its first shutdown in years as leaders in Washington scrambled for a last-minute deal on another short-term budget. If that fails, the Department of Energy and its Office of Environmental Management could shortly be forced to furlough most employees and suspend many operations. While the House […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor hired about 550 employees last year in an effort to offset personnel lost due to retirement. Some of the new Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) hires are operators, who assist in the operation of a process or equipment within a nuclear facility at the Department of Energy […]

Concerns are growing over safety violations at the Savannah River Site’s defense facilities, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a recent letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The Jan. 4 letter, signed by DNFSB Chairman Sean Sullivan, said safety issues identified in a Sept. 8, 2017, report from staff at the DOE watchdog […]

URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) earned an award fee of $3.28 million of a potential $3.78 million for the second half of fiscal 2017 under its cleanup contract for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, according to a scorecard from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. The document, dated Dec. 5, 2017, graded UCOR […]

Washington Closure Hanford has reached a settlement agreement in principle with the U.S. Department of Justice in a civil lawsuit over subcontracting at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Justice Department has accused the former Hanford cleanup prime contractor of awarding small business subcontracts to front companies. Washington Closure’s contract for environmental […]

A total of $211 million was spent on procurements for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant in fiscal 2017, according to contractor Bechtel National. The plant is being built to turn up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste held in underground tanks into a stable glass form for disposal. “Procurement opportunities have changed as work […]

Concerns are growing over safety violations at the Savannah River Site’s defense facilities, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a recent letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The Jan. 4 letter, signed by DNFSB Chairman Sean Sullivan, said safety issues identified in a Sept. 8, 2017, report from staff at the DOE watchdog […]

About 100 workers at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant are being moved to new offices outside of an expanded control zone around the facility. The move is due to “the overwhelming presence of naturally occurring radon in the PFP trailer village area,” workers were told in a message Wednesday. A spread of radioactive contamination […]

Wastren Advantage Inc. (WAI) took home 96.1 percent of the potential award fee for its laboratory analysis and testing contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state for the period from Nov. 21, 2016, to Sept. 20, 2017, according to a recent performance scorecard from the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. Wastren took in […]