Cleanup & Remediation

The consulting firm Longenecker & Associates has hired Michael Mason to serve as a Senior Project Manager. Mason previously served in senior management positions at Bechtel Power Corporation, and has more than 35 years of management and quality assurance experience, according to an L&A press release. “Mike is a proven manager with extensive experience that […]

Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. last week said it is changing its new subcontracting strategy to self-perform more work than had been previously planned. Last week CHPRC notified ENREP, Inc. and East Tennessee Materials and Energy Corporation that it will not be subcontracting their scope after their contracts expire on Sept. 30. […]

New Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said yesterday that he hopes to have a revised plan for addressing tank waste at the Hanford site finalized this summer. In remarks to reporters on the sidelines of a conference held by the Energy Information Administration in Washington, Moniz said his June 19 trip to Hanford would serve […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight has pushed back by one week a planned hearing on the Department of Energy’s major cleanup contracts. The hearing is now scheduled to be held June 27 beginning at 10:30 a.m. The panel has asked DOE and its set of major cleanup […]

The Small Business Administration late last week struck down challenges to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Maywood, N.J. award to Cabrera Services and CB&I, ruling that Cabrera does qualify as a small business. Two teams—one named Maywood Closure Company, LLC, made up of Environmental Chemical Corporation, Safety and Ecology Holdings Corporation, ARS International and […]

Kurion Chairman and CEO Ralph DiSibio is calling on the Department of Energy to develop new contracting approaches to make it easier to use new technologies to help clean up Hanford. In a column published by The Hill on its website yesterday, DiSibio wrote that new Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz should form an independent […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is concerned with how Washington state environmental regulators are performing oversight at Hanford, according to a draft EPA report the watchdog group Hanford Challenge made public yesterday. The draft report, dated April 29, 2013, examines how the Washington State Department of Ecology implemented various environmental laws in Fiscal Year 2011. […]

Kurion later today will announce the appointment of Bill Gallo as Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately, WC Monitor has learned. Former CEO Ralph DiSibio will remain with the company as executive chairman. Gallo, who joined Kurion in March as Chief Operating Officer, came to Kurion from AREVA, where he most recently led AREVA Solar and […]

Baker Concrete is suing Savannah River Nuclear Solutions for damages it says it incurred in relation to work it performed as a subcontractor for the Waste Solidification Building. In the suit filed June 6 in the U.S. District Court for the South Carolina District Baker claimed a litany of offenses by SRNS, including breach of […]

In a move that threatens the Department of Energy’s plans to ship a portion of its uranium-233 inventory at Oak Ridge to the Nevada National Security Site for disposal, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval (R) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are opposing the proposal. The Department has made some initial shipments of uranium 233 […]

In the wake of the Department of Energy’s recent announcement that a damaged Hanford double-shell waste tank may now be leaking into the ground, Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D) said late last week that he will be “insisting” that DOE accelerate its efforts to address all of Hanford’s aging waste tanks. Late on June 20, […]

Most of the Department of Energy’s major cleanup sites would see boosts to their authorized funding levels above what DOE proposed in its Fiscal Year 2014 budget request under the Senate FY 2014 Defense Authorization Act, more details of which were released yesterday. The bill, which has been approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee, […]

In clearing its version of the Fiscal Year 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations Act yesterday, the Senate Energy and Water Development Subcommittee only released top line numbers for the NNSA and other Department of Energy programs. Overall, the subcommittee matched the Administration’s $7.868 billion request for the NNSA’s weapons program and boosted funding for the […]

House appropriators took the Department of Energy to task for issues experienced on several major cleanup contracts in the report accompanying the Fiscal Year 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, released yesterday ahead of today’s scheduled full Appropriations Committee markup. Among the projects that came in for criticism in the report is the Savannah River […]

The Washington State Department of Health is reportedly considering whether Hanford shipments of plutonium-contaminated gloveboxes to Perma-Fix Northwest in Richland should be temporarily suspended. The suspension is being considered after a June 19 incident with a container holding glovebox sections, in which contamination was allegedly spread at the plant. The Department of Health said in […]

A five-minute period late on June 28 that saw Perma-Fix stock lose nearly a quarter of its value—dropping from $0.46 per share to $0.36 shortly after 4:00 p.m.—was “extremely odd,” President and Chairman Lou Centofanti said yesterday. “At exactly 4:00, 120,000 shares were sold … and then in after-hours trading we saw a purchase for […]

Less than four months after National Strategic Protective Services, LLC, took over as the Department of Energy’s new Oak Ridge protective force contractor, it’s top official is resigning. NSPS, a joint venture of Triple Canopy, Inc. and Securiguard, Inc. said last week that General Manager Greg McDowell was leaving the company for “personal reasons.” McDowell’s […]

Efforts to bring 3.1 million gallons of Hanford sludge to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant suffered a major setback Monday with the New Mexico Environment Department’s decision to hold full-blown hearings on the issue. The Department of Energy had asked in March for a change to WIPP’s state permit as a “Class 2” permit modification, […]

North Wind, as expected, officially named Chris Leichtweis yesterday as its new President and Chief Strategic Officer. WC Monitor first reported in mid-June that Leichtweis was the top candidate to replace North Wind’s retired founder, Sylvia Medina, as president. Leichtweis previously served as senior vice president at Perma-Fix Environmental Services after it purchased Safety and […]

The Department of Energy released a draft Workforce Restructuring Plan for the Savannah River Site yesterday afternoon that outlines the processes for a potential reductions but does not lay out any specific proposed workforce changes. DOE released the plan yesterday with no explanation of its timing or any planned near-term workforce changes. “Once approved, this […]

Funding for the Department of Energy’s cleanup program was the subject of two amendments offered yesterday during debate on the House floor over the Fiscal Year 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations Act. Longtime cleanup supporter Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) was successful in amending the bill to add another $22.5 million in defense environmental cleanup funds, […]

Provisions in the new National Strategic Protective Services Oak Ridge protective force contract with the Department of Energy don’t include automatic penalties to the contractor for the early departure of key personnel, though a DOE spokesman said yesterday that NSPS could have its fee reduced if the departure of General Manager Greg McDowell adversely affected […]

A former Securities and Exchange Commission accountant has been appointed to serve as the corporate monitor of CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. after a timecard fraud scandal at the Hanford tank farms. As part of a March agreement between CH2M Hill and the Department of Justice to avoid prosecution, CH2M Hill agreed to pay for […]

After the Department of Energy earlier this week released a draft workforce restructuring plan for the Savannah River Site, site management-and-operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions told employees yesterday that it is not planning any workforce changes. “I wanted to assure you that SRNS has no workforce restructuring request pending with DOE, and no workforce […]

The Department of Energy has begun moving forward with preparations to recompete the contract to manage the Oak Ridge Transuranic Waste Processing Center, issuing a sources sought notice yesterday to begin performing market research to gauge whether there are small businesses capable of performing the work. According to the notice, DOE is proposing using a […]

The Department of Energy has missed a previously stated target of June 30 to come up with a final fee determination for CH2M-WG Idaho’s first seven years of cleanup work at the Department’s Idaho site. The DOE Idaho Operations Office declined to comment yesterday on the cause of the delay, and did not provide a […]

Liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation has submitted to the Department of Energy a draft workforce restructuring plan in response to significant proposed cuts to liquid waste operations at the site. The contractor sent a message to employees Tuesday after earlier this week the Department released for public comment a draft Savannah River Site workforce […]

The Department of Energy’s Richland Operations Office at Hanford late last week awarded two new blanket purchase agreements to provide support services. The winners were Corporate Allocations Services, Inc., and Longenecker & Associates, Inc. The agreements are set to run for up to five years, consisting of a three-year base period and two one-year option […]

Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company spent about $2 million more than needed on temporary office space for Recovery Act workers, according to a Department of Energy Inspector General report released Friday. CHPRC spent $29 million on modular facilities to provide work space for the 1,757 workers it took on during the Recovery […]

WSI-SRS, the protective force contractor at the Savannah River Site, earned $2.1 million in fee for the first half of Fiscal Year 2013, 79 percent of the fee available ($2.7 million) under its contract with the Department of Energy. The contractor, which earned 97 percent ($2.6 million) of its available fee for the second half […]