Cleanup & Remediation

A government shutdown loomed Friday as some Senate Democrats held hostage a stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government and its Cold War nuclear cleanup work funded through late April. The House passed the so-called continuing resolution Thursday, then adjourned for the week. In the Senate, however, Democratic lawmakers led by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor has been fined $17,650 for violations related to hazardous waste transport. According to an Energy Department occurrence report, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, an agency under the U.S. Department of Transportation, noted violations committed by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) on in a report dated Nov. […]

The Energy Department’s final review of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s recovery effort uncovered 21 punch-list items the agency’s Carlsbad Field Office and contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership must address before the mine can reopen after its nearly three-year pause. In addition to those 21 so-called corrective actions, DOE prescribed 15 fixes that the local field […]

  Renee Echols, a longtime executive at nuclear services provider Perma-Fix Environmental Services, has been named president of FireWater Associates. The nearly 8-year-old Maryville, Tenn., company offers a wide range of nuclear waste management, transport, regulatory and environmental compliance, and supply chain management services, for government and commercial clients, including radioactive waste profiling, waste management […]

Costs will soar and deadlines will go unmet at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., if workers there keep wearing gear to protect them from noxious fumes leaking from underground waste tanks, the Energy Department and its tank-farm contractor said this week. In documents published Wednesday, the AECOM-led Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) estimated the cost of […]

South Carolina on Monday again urged a federal judge to reconsider her finding that the U.S. District Court has no jurisdiction over monetary claims levied against the Energy Department for failing to remove plutonium from the state earlier this year, according to court papers. South Carolina sued DOE in February after the agency failed to […]

The Department of Energy Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site in Washington state has named Ben Harp as deputy manager, after he served in the position on an acting basis for several weeks. He also will serve as chief operating officer for the DOE office charged with management and disposal of 56 million gallons […]

Sue Cange from the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee has been promoted to principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management at DOE headquarters in Washington, the agency announced Thursday. Cange, most recently manager for DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, has been with DOE for nearly 30 years. She succeeds Mark Whitney, who […]

The Energy Department is scrapping a never-used step in the Savannah River Site’s spent nuclear fuel (SNF) processing campaign following a potential inadequacy at the site’s L Area, where the fuel is stored. Maxine Maxted, the site’s program manager for SNF, addressed the issue Tuesday during a meeting of the Nuclear Materials Committee of the […]

A government shutdown loomed Friday as some Senate Democrats held hostage a stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government and its Cold War nuclear cleanup work funded through late April. The House passed the so-called continuing resolution Thursday, then adjourned for the week. In the Senate, however, Democratic lawmakers led by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) […]

A new trial date has been set in a federal lawsuit over worker protection from chemical vapors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. After the plaintiffs requested a five-month delay, plaintiffs and defendants agreed to postpone the trial by about six weeks, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for […]

An Energy Department contractor was expected to begin a review Thursday that would pave the way for removing the last 14 vertical pipe units from the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., an agency official said Wednesday. Most of the 90 pipes, which were filled with radioactive wastes in the 1950s and 60s, have been yanked out […]

South Carolina on Monday again urged a federal judge to reconsider her finding that the U.S. District Court has no jurisdiction over monetary claims levied against the Energy Department for failing to remove plutonium from the state earlier this year, according to court papers. South Carolina sued DOE in February after the agency failed to […]

The Department of Energy Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site in Washington state has named Ben Harp as deputy manager, after he served in the position on an acting basis for several weeks. He also will serve as chief operating officer for the DOE office charged with management and disposal of 56 million gallons […]

Three Pacific Northwest senators are urging Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to take swift action on recommendations made last week in a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) on Hanford Site waste tank vapors. “With the review in hand it is now critical that DOE take swift and definitive actions to implement the recommendations,” […]

VIENNA – U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said Monday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will monitor the dilution and disposal of 6 metric tons of excess plutonium at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. Moniz announced during the opening ministerial segment of the IAEA’s International Conference on Nuclear Security: Commitments and Actions […]

By Billy Morrison Twenty-five years ago this week, the Energy Facility Contractors Group was born. After receiving the thumbs up from then-Secretary of Energy James Watkins early in 1991, a group of executives from the Department of Energy’s management and operations contractors met the first week of December 1991 to officially form EFCOG, approving a charter […]

Waste Control Specialists is seeking leniency from federal regulators after apparently violating its federal waste-storage permit to prevent a possible radiation release in 2014, according to an official account the company filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The 12-page account, the most detailed Waste Control Specialists (WCS) has offered publicly on the situation, is printed […]

A dozen workers this week reported symptoms or suspicious odors that could be related to chemical vapors from waste stored at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Thursday afternoon, three workers reported a suspicious ammonia-like odor outside a facility used to switch out empty air bottles for full containers to use with […]

President Barack Obama this week nominated nuclear energy industry veteran Bruce Hamilton to serve a full term on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board member. Hamilton joined the board in August 2015, replacing Ken Mossman, who has since died. If approved by the Senate, he would serve a full term of five years. Hamilton was president […]

A local advisory board wants the Department of Energy to expedite processing of aluminum-clad spent nuclear fuel (SNF) stocks at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. During its bimonthly meeting on Nov. 15, the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) approved a recommendation asking DOE to “accelerate plans and decisions to process its entire inventory of aluminum-clad SNF […]

Hanford Site tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) has reached a settlement agreement with the Department of Energy Office of Enforcement over a subcontractor worker who fell into an abandoned septic system. The company has agreed to pay $45,000 and take actions to improve safety, including with its subcontractors, according to a consent […]

Washington state and its co-plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit over chemical vapor protections for workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site are asking for five more months to prepare for trial. The proposed delay would move the trial from Sept 18, 2017, to Feb. 19, 2018. The current case schedule cannot be met, in […]

South Carolina wants a U.S. District Court judge to reconsider her recent opinion that she has no jurisdiction to rule on the $100 million the state is seeking in its lawsuit over disposition of DOE plutonium stored at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. State Attorney General Alan Wilson sued the Energy Department, Energy Secretary […]

With the impending ascension of former NASA hand Rex Geveden to the top spot at BWX Technologies, the Lynchburg, Va.-company has set an an outsider from the aerospace business in charge of an effort to grow the company’s legacy nuclear cleanup business with the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. “We remain strongly committed to […]

With the impending ascension of former NASA hand Rex Geveden to the top spot at BWX Technologies, the Lynchburg, Va.-company has set an outsider from the aerospace business in charge of an effort to grow the company’s legacy nuclear cleanup business with the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. “We remain strongly committed to that […]

President Barack Obama this week nominated nuclear energy industry veteran Bruce Hamilton to serve a full term on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Hamilton joined the board in August 2015, replacing the late Ken Mossman. If approved by the Senate, he would serve a full term of five years. Hamilton was president of nuclear fuel […]

South Carolina wants a U.S. District Court judge to reconsider her recent opinion that she has no jurisdiction to rule on the $100 million the state is seeking in its lawsuit over disposition of DOE plutonium stored at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. State Attorney General Alan Wilson sued the Energy Department, Energy Secretary Ernest […]

The Environmental Protection Agency said last week it is extending the schedule for proposing a final soil cleanup remedy at the West Lake Landfill Superfund site in Missouri, without offering a new date. The agency, which had originally expected to deliver a final remedy by the end of this year, cited delays in submission of […]

Six workers received “precautionary medical evaluation” Wednesday following possible exposure to vapors from waste tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state, tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions said. The workers said they detected odors Wednesday morning near the AX Tank Farm, and four indicated they were experiencing symptoms of exposure. All were approved to […]