Cleanup & Remediation

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 1/30/2015 The lifecycle cost estimate for the Department of Energy’s cleanup mission at the Savannah River Site has been extended 23 years and increased in cost by $25.2 billion due to declining budgets and the lack of a national repository for spent fuel and high-level waste, DOE officials said this week. […]

GAO Denied Protest Filed by Portage Mike Nartker WC Monitor 1/30/2015 Navarro Research and Engineering is set to begin a 30-day transition period early next week to officially take over the new Nevada National Security Site environmental programs services contract. The move comes after the Government Accountability Office this week denied a protest Portage filed […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 1/30/2015 The Department of Energy should better address the risk posed by the hundreds of excess contaminated facilities that have not yet been transferred to the Office of Environmental Management for cleanup, the DOE Office of Inspector General said in a report released this week. It notes DOE has not yet […]

Sue Cange Named DOE Oak Ridge Cleanup Manager WC Monitor 1/30/2015 Sue Cange was officially named this week as the full-time Manager of the Department of Energy Oak Ridge’s Office of Environmental Management.  Cange had served in the post on an acting basis since May 2014, when current EM Acting Assistant Secretary Mark Whitney moved […]

DOE Agrees to Pay $44,000 Fine Over Waste Storage Violations WC Monitor 1/30/2015 The Department of Energy has agreed to pay a $44,722 penalty to resolve more violations of waste storage requirements at Hanford, as alleged by the Environmental Protection Agency. The two agencies signed a consent agreement this week, with DOE neither admitting nor […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/30/2015 In a record environmental settlement, the U.S. government and Kerr-McGee Corporation  subsidiary Anadarko Petroleum Corporation finalized a $5.15 billion settlement last week, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice announced. Of the $5.15 billion, $985 million will go toward the cleanup of radioactive contamination at approximately 50 abandoned […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/30/2015 After months of calls for the public release of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the Shallow Land Disposal Area (SLDA) site in Armstrong County, Pa., the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program publicly released the document last week. The agreement clarifies the roles of […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/30/2015 The Army Corps of Engineers’ Alaska District issued a sources sought notice this week for an architect and engineering services indefinite delivery contract. The contract would call for architect and engineering services related to the cleanup of hazardous, toxic, and radiological wastes over a five-year period in Alaska and […]

The Department of Energy should better address the risk posed by the hundreds of excess contaminated facilities that have not yet been transferred to the Office of Environmental Management for cleanup, the DOE Office of Inspector General said in a report released yesterday. For example, DOE has not yet developed a “definitive transfer schedule” for […]

The lifecycle cost estimate for the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management mission at the Savannah River Site has been extended 23 years and increased in cost by $25.2 billion, according to a DOE Savannah River presentation yesterday to the SRS Citizen’s Advisory Board. The estimate developed in 2014 pushed cleanup completion from Fiscal Year 2042 […]

The Army Corps of Engineers’ Alaska District issued a sources sought notice yesterday for an architect and engineering indefinite delivery contract. The contract would call for architect and engineering services related to the cleanup of hazardous, toxic, and radiological wastes over a five-year period in Alaska and the Pacific Rim, the notice said. “The US […]

Hanford site services contractor Mission Support Alliance, LLC, yesterday announced that Bill Johnson will be taking over as MSA president from Frank Armijo, effective Feb. 2. Johnson was most recently vice president of business services for Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions, where he oversaw operations services to the utilities PSEG Long Island and […]

The Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program publicly released last week the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the Shallow Land Disposal Area (SLDA) site in Armstrong County, Pa. The document clarifies the roles of the Corps, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Nuclear […]

Emphasizing the uncertainty of Department of Energy’s continued use of uranium transfers to fund cleanup at the Portsmouth site, Ohio lawmakers last week called on the Administration to “fully fund” Portsmouth D&D in the Fiscal Year 2016 budget request due out next week. Cleanup at the site is funded through a combination of the transfers […]

The Department of Energy’s arduous search for a new support contractor for the Office of Legacy Management could finally come to an end this week with a third contract award decision. Proposals submitted for the new contract are set to expire at the end of this week, though it remains to be seen if DOE […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/23/2015 New Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) asked President Barack Obama this week to include a responsible level of funding for Department of Energy environmental management work in his budget request to Congress for Fiscal Year 2016. If DOE cleanup budgets continue to dwindle, more cleanup work will be postponed, leading to […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 1/23/2015 The White House is set to renominate Monica Regalbuto to head the Department of Energy’s cleanup program, though the timing of the move remains unclear, WC Monitor has learned. Along with Regalbuto, the White House is also set to renominate Jonathan Elkind to serve as Assistant Secretary of Energy for […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 1/23/2015 A new Department of Energy fee plan for the final 18 months of Fluor-B&W Portsmouth’s base contract for the Portsmouth D&D project, a copy of which WC Monitor obtained this week, continues DOE’s efforts to shift more risk to its contractors. Under the plan, FBP is now at risk of […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 1/23/2015 The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Operations Office is creating a new position of Associate Deputy Manager, which will be filled by Thomas Johnson, currently serving at DOE Office of Environmental Management headquarters. In his new role, announced this week, Johnson will report to DOE Savannah River Deputy Manager Terrel […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 1/23/2015 The Department of Energy is seeking best-and-final offers from bidders on the new contract to operate the Hanford 222-S Laboratory, a spokeswoman for the DOE Office of Environmental Management confirmed this week. DOE has established a competitive range for the procurement and is seeking revised offers “to maximize the government’s […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 1/23/2015 Savannah River Site managing contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions earned 86 percent of its available award fee for Fiscal Year 2014, according to award fee information the Department of Energy released this week. SRNS earned 94 percent of its available fee for cleanup work, totaling $23.9 million, but did not […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 1/23/2015 The Department of Energy issued this week an updated draft Request for Proposals for the new contract to manage Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed facilities at the Department’s Idaho site and in Colorado. The updated draft includes a slight change on the planned evaluation criteria. The top factor, relevant past performance, now […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 1/23/2015 After a Department of Energy program assessment found three high-priority issues with the systems engineering program for Oak Ridge cleanup contractor URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC, the contractor is working on a corrective action plan due early next month. The technical assessment, undertaken in 2014, looked at the systems engineering program, […]

NMP Hopes For Continued Role at Sellafield After Contract Termination Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 1/23/2015 In the wake of the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s decision to take back management of the Sellafield site, Nuclear Management Partners said this week that it hopes it or its parent companies will continue to play a role at the […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/23/2015 As it continues to gather information on the best remedy for cleanup at the West Lake Landfill, the Environmental Protection Agency needs additional site characterization to determine if more radiologically-impacted material (RIM) exists outside the previously marked area, the agency said in a letter to the Missouri Attorney General […]

Savannah River Site M&O contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions earned 86 percent of its available award fee for Fiscal Year 2014, according to award fee information the Department of Energy released yesterday. SRNS earned 94 percent of its available fee for cleanup work, totaling $23.9 million, but did not score as high in its National […]

The Department of Energy yesterday issued an updated request for proposal for the new contract to manage Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed facilities at the Department’s Idaho site and in Colorado. This follows an initial draft that was released in October. The new contract, which is being set aside for small businesses meeting a $38.5 million size […]

The management changes underway at the U.K.’s Sellafield site will not impact the site’s current contracts and supply chain approach, a Sellafield Limited official said yesterday. Last week the U.K. government announced that it will terminate Nuclear Management Partners’ contract to run the site and ownership of site license company Sellafield Ltd. will revert from […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/16/2015 Idaho is open to providing the Department of Energy a one-time waiver to allow DOE to send some spent nuclear fuel to the Idaho National Laboratory for research purposes, but only if the Department provides an enforceable time frame for coming back into compliance with a 1995 Settlement Agreement, […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/16/2015 The operator of the Bridgeton Landfill agreed last week, after court negotiations with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR), to relocate two Temperature Monitoring Probes (TMP) closer to the radioactively contaminated portion of the West Lake Landfill. The state had requested the relocation late last month following concerns […]