Cleanup & Remediation

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 5/2/2014 Leo Sain is stepping down as President and Project Manager of Oak Ridge cleanup contractor URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC to return to a corporate role at URS. In his new position, announced this week, Sain will head up URS Global Management and Operations Services’  Decontamination and Decommissioning and Waste Management […]

WC Monitor 5/2/2014 IN THE DNFSB House lawmakers are looking to lower the maximum number of employees the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board can have by 20 percent. A provision in the House version of the FY 2015 defense authorization bill, which was reported out of subcommittee this week, would limit the number of full-time […]

NS&D Monitor 5/2/2014 IN THE DNFSB House lawmakers are looking to lower the maximum number of employees the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board can have by 20 percent. A provision in the House version of the FY 2015 defense authorization bill, which was reported out of subcommittee this week, would limit the number of full-time […]

Survey Shows Workers Satisfied With Their Jobs, EM Leadership Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/25/2014 A survey of employees within the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has found that workers appear to have significant concerns with how their performance—good or bad—is addressed. EM recently provided to WC Monitor specific data on the views of […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/25/2014 Procurement of equipment to remove contaminated sludge from at Hanford’s K-Basin near the Columbia River begins later  this year in a major project that received $31.6 million in the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request. Extensive preparations are now underway for the actual transfer of the material, including […]

State, DOE Can’t Reach Agreement on Modification Staff Reports WC Monitor 4/25/2014 Washington state has triggered a formal dispute resolution process for Hanford’s court-enforced consent decree following the Department of Energy’s rejection late last week of the state’s proposal for new deadlines and other requirements. State attorneys sent a brief letter April 23 to the […]

Push Continues for MOX Construction NS&D Monitor 4/25/2014 As South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) this week hailed a lawsuit the state has filed opposing the proposed suspension of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, members of the state’s Congressional delegation took credit for avoiding 1,000 layoffs at the site. The state filed suit last […]

DOE Conducts Market Research for Performance Assessments WC Monitor 4/25/2014 The Department of Energy is looking to see if small businesses are available that could perform probabilistic performance assessments and apply decision analysis tools to D&D work at the West Valley Demonstration Project, according to a sources sought notice released this week. DOE has begun […]

Readiness Assessment Delay for New H-Canyon Mission WC Monitor 4/25/2014 After delays last year due to conduct of operations issues, the Department of Energy has now pushed to May a planned readiness assessment for a new mission at Savannah River’s HB-Line to produce plutonium oxide for feedstock for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, WC […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/18/2014      Washington state late this week rejected a proposal put forward by the Department of Energy to modify the 2010 consent decree that governs the cleanup of Hanford’s tank waste. DOE had proposed employing a phased approach to getting the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant in operation that would entail […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/18/2014 The Department of Energy is seeking industry comment as to whether an employee benefits test should be added to the planned Request for Proposals for the new contract to perform analysis and testing services at Hanford’s 222-S Laboratory. According to a notice issued this week, DOE is considering adding a […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/18/2014      While the Department of Energy is not seeking any funding next year for a program to reimburse the costs of cleaning up a set of sites that produced uranium and thorium, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) has requested $54 million in Fiscal Year 2015 for the effort from Senate […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/18/2014 NDA Launches Magnox Transition, No Challenges So Far  The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has launched a five-month transition period for Cavendish Fluor Partnership to take over management of 10 Magnox power plants and two research reactor sites after no legal challenges to the contract award were filed during a recent 10-day […]

After Injury at DWPF, DOE Seeks Improvements The Department of Energy’s Office of Health, Safety and Security this week noted several issues as a result of an investigation into a shoulder injury last year suffered by a Savannah River Remediation worker. The injury occurred in March 2013 at the Defense Waste Processing Facility during replacement […]

Board Working To Address Staff Morale Concerns Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/11/2014 The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is considering establishing some sort of ombudsman capability as part of its efforts to address staff morale concerns, DNFSB Chairman Peter Winokur told WC Monitor this week. A new ombudsman was one of several recommendations developed by […]

Dounreay Costs May Go up £200 Million Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/11/2014 The last eight double-shell waste tanks built at Hanford had only minor construction issues, according to the final construction review report released by the Department of Energy this week.  The review concluded that double-shell tanks in the AP Tank Farm were in better […]

  Mike Nartker  WC Monitor 4/11/2014 Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) warned this week that the Department of Energy’s proposed Fiscal Year 2015 budget for Hanford could put milestones at risk of being missed. Hanford came in for one of the largest cuts in the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s  FY 2015 budget request—for work overseen […]

SWPF, Tank Closure Teams Earn DOE Awards The Department of Energy this week doled out two Honor Awards related to tank waste cleanup at the Savannah River Site, one to the Salt Waste Processing Renegotiation Team and one to the tank closure team. The SWPF team negotiated a new agreement for the construction of the […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/14/2014 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is coming under criticism for its oversight and record keeping activities for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program’s Shallow Land Disposal Area, located in Parks Township, Pa, in an NRC Inspector General’s Office report released this week. The IG found […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is still deciding how to spend the windfall for most cleanup sites in the spending bill that passed Congress earlier this month, which included about $200 million more for EM than asked for in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget request. After financial uncertainties last year caused furloughs, […]

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) met with Savannah River Site contractors and local officials Friday in Aiken, S.C. to discuss Savannah River issues. “Although many of the different players have different priorities, one clear objective remains: we must do all that we can to ensure the Savannah River Site’s national security missions remain intact with a […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety Licensing Board won’t provide an initial ruling on the operating license application for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility until next month, the NRC said late last week. The ASLB had expected to provide its assessment of the licensing request by Shaw AREVA MOX Services by late January. In […]

S.M. Stoller Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls Industries, has hired Jeffery Baker to serve as assistant vice president, effective Feb. 10. Baker currently serves as “deputy director of the project management coordination office” for the Department of Energy, as well as within the leadership team of the Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency […]

Employees for the Savannah River Site went home early yesterday and will be home today due to a rare winter storm that has hit South Carolina. Up to several inches of snow and ice were forecast for the Savannah River region with temperatures dipping well below freezing.  Non-essential personnel were dismissed from work beginning at […]

Kurion announced yesterday that it has acquired Vista Engineering Services, tripling the size of the company, according to a press release. Vista Engineering Services, based in Richland, Wash., offers a variety of engineering services including environmental remediation capabilities, and its base work at the Department of Energy’s Hanford site offers Kurion a larger influence within […]

Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, the D&D contractor for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, earned approximately 75 percent of the fee available for Fiscal Year 2013—$12 million out of an available $16 million, according to information Weapons Complex Monitor obtained this week. FBP’s latest fee determination, outlined in a Jan. 31 letter from Bill Murphie, head of the […]

Portage earned 96 percent of its available award fee in Fiscal Year 2013 for its work on the Moab uranium mill tailings remediation project in Utah, earning about $1.1 million in award fee out of $1.14 million available, according to information recently made public. “The contractor met the majority of performance goals and objectives for […]

In a move linked to an ongoing procurement for cleanup of the Energy Technology Engineering Center in California, the Department of Energy last week released an amendment to its notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for cleanup work at the broader Santa Susana Field Laboratory. DOE said it expects to issue a […]

Bechtel National is looking to conduct a significant reorganization of its management at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, Weapons Complex Monitor has learned. Many details of BNI’s proposal, which has been submitted to the Department of Energy for approval, remain unclear, though it reportedly would include modifications to the contractor’s Environmental and Nuclear Safety organization […]

LATA Environmental Services of Kentucky, LLC, the cleanup contractor for the Paducah site, earned approximately 90 percent of its available fee for Fiscal Year 2013, according to information Weapons Complex Monitor obtained yesterday. In total, LATA Kentucky earned approximately $3.02 million out of an available $3.37 million. The contractor’s fee included $1.80 million for completing […]