Cleanup & Remediation

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers expects to solicit bids by the end of October for a small business to build a viewing platform next to a museum at the old K-25 gaseous diffusion plant grounds at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The Nashville District of the US Army Corps of […]

Dallas-based Jacobs announced Thursday that Steve Demetriou, the CEO of the international engineering, construction and procurement company for seven years, is stepping down from the top job in January but will stay with the company as executive chair of the board. Jacobs current president and chief operating officer Bob Pragada will succeed Demetriou as CEO […]

Nuclear services company Orano Federal Services and environmental services contractor Spectra Tech created a joint-venture company to pursue small business set-aside contracts, the two said in a joint press release. The new joint venture, dubbed Spectrano, will “leverage its history of performance at federal sites across the country,” Orano said in the Wednesday release. The […]

Atkins Nuclear Secured Holding Corp. broke ground Tuesday on a new $20-million technology center in Richland, Wash., near the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. Located next door to the current Atkins Engineering Laboratory, the new facility will have a 16,000-square-foot high-bay testing area specifically to develop innovative nuclear and environmental cleanup technologies, the SNC-Lavalin company […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management, long-term custodian of 101 previously contaminated sites cleaned up by other federal entities, expects to see its portfolio nearly double over time, a top administrator said last week. The Office of Legacy Management will take charge of 20 more sites over the next five years, Jay Glascock, […]

The West Valley Demonstration Project, a nuclear cleanup site 35 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y., again has a congressional member in the House of Representatives effective Tuesday, albeit a short timer. Republican Joe Sempolinski was sworn in Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to represent the 23rd congressional district of New York.   “It […]

During a federal appeals court hearing Tuesday on mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for most federal employees, the Department of Justice attorney said a federal district judge was wrong to shut down the policy spawned by a September 2021 executive order just as an administrative board was about to start ruling on requests for exemptions.  Charles Scarborough, […]

Cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) last week began excavating corrugated metal pipes containing radioactive waste buried at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. Retrieval of the corrugated metal pipes began Sept. 8 as part of a project that could last into March 2024, the spokesperson said […]

The West Valley Demonstration Project, a nuclear cleanup site 35 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y., will again have a congressional member in the House of Representatives effective Tuesday, albeit a short timer. Republican Joe Sempolinski will be sworn in Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to represent the 23rd congressional district of New York, […]

The entire Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is poised to hear oral arguments Tuesday on whether President Joe Biden’s administration exceeded its authority by requiring that most federal employees get vaccinated against COVID-19. The Fifth Circuit has a livestream link where the public can listen to the hearing in real time although the livestream […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management, long-term custodian of 101 previously contaminated sites cleaned up by other federal entities, expects to see its portfolio nearly double over time, a top administrator said last week. The Office of Legacy Management will take charge of 20 more sites over the next five years, Jay Glascock, […]

The Department of Energy plans to increase the ceiling for the Moab Technical Assistance Contract held by S&K Logistics Services to $29.8 million from $24.3 million, according to a notice published Thursday on a federal procurement website.  The Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center posted a “justification for other than full and open competition” on […]

Two megadollar Department of Energy nuclear cleanup contracts, together potentially worth more than $50 billion, could be awarded by early 2023, a top Office of Environmental Management procurement executive told a gathering in Santa Fe, N.M., Wednesday. The Integrated Tank Disposition Contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state and the Decontamination and Decommissioning Contract […]

The Joe Biden administration overstepped its authority by utilizing the Procurement Act to impose a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for most employees of government contractors, a federal appeals court said Friday. However, a federal district judge in Georgia went too far in issuing a nationwide injunction against the contractor vaccine mandate, the panel of judges for […]

The Department of Energy this week unveiled a framework for increasing its workplace diversity as directed by the White House, the agency said in a press release. Under DOE’s new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) strategic plan, the agency aims to “sustain an inclusive and accessible work environment by strengthening recruitment, retention and promotion, […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week gave litigators for contractor Swift & Staley as well as the Department of Justice seven days to specify dates in December they won’t be available for oral arguments. “Briefing is completed in this case,” the appeals court said in a Monday order, instructing litigators […]

Current and former Department of Energy contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio deny responsibility in court papers filed this week for the cancer death of a 13-year-old boy who lived near the nuclear cleanup property. The eight contractors filed a response Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio to a wrongful death […]

Due in part to this year’s Cerro Pelado wildfire, the New Mexico Environment Department has given the cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory until Oct. 30 to perform sampling connected with a hexavalent chromium plume. The state agency officially granted a two-month extension in an Aug. 24 letter to the […]

The Department of Energy Office of Enterprise Assessments is satisfied overall with safety programs Bechtel National is developing for a waste solidification plant aiming to start up late next year at the Hanford Site in Washington state, but says improvements are needed. One area the agency should address prior to startup of Direct-Feed-Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week gave litigators for contractor Swift & Staley as well as the Department of Justice seven days to specify dates in December they won’t be available for oral arguments. “Briefing is completed in this case,” the appeals court said in a Monday order, instructing litigators […]

Web-savvy observers might notice the Department of Energy’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center on Friday overhauled the look and feel of its current procurements website. The redesigned website appears to provide the same previously-available documents and videos on planned requests for proposals (RFP) and market research in an easier-to-follow format. The website appears to […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants the Department of Energy and its legacy cleanup contractor to prioritize a new safety analysis for the waste handling area of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico that is currently in limited operations. Since January 2020, contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) has declared 24 […]

Brandon Weathers is headed back to Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board headquarters in Washington after wrapping up a four-year stint as a resident inspector at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the board said recently. Weathers now will join the independent federal nuclear inspector’s Nuclear Programs and Analysis group, the board wrote in a […]

For the seven days ended Thursday, Aug. 25, there were 84 confirmed onsite cases of COVID-19 at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management worksites, according to a spokesperson. That is 69 less than the prior week’s total of 153, the spokesperson said in a Thursday email. The DOE recently said it is discontinuing […]

After being criticized for foot-dragging, the Department of Energy and Washington state announced an agreement Thursday Aug. 25 to address two leaking underground radioactive tanks at the Hanford Site, as well as future tank leaks. Under a binding order, the federal agency and the Washington Department of Ecology agreed by 2028 to cover the site’s […]

Land clearing and preparation of haul roads is underway for the final three super-sized Saltstone Disposal Units at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the agency said last week. Work crews are also grading the property and installing underground utility lines for the planned Saltstone Disposal Units (SDUs) 10, 11 and […]

As part of a long-running legal slog, Swift & Staley’s attorneys say they could make the case this year for why the company should have won a small-business set-aside award for landlord services at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky. But Swift & Staley Inc. (SSI), the incumbent landlord services provider, won’t be […]

Joel Spangenberg, the first executive director of operations for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, is leaving the agency to become deputy director of the Selective Service System.  Spangenberg, a member of the government’s senior executive service, is leaving the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) and should start his job with Selective Service on […]

Republican congressional staffer Joe Sempolinski is the apparent winner of a special election Tuesday for New York’s 23rd Congressional District, enabling him to serve out the final months in the unexpired term of his old boss, former Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.). According to press reports, Sempolinski captured roughly 52% of the vote against Democrat Max […]

Voters in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, which includes the West Valley Demonstration Project nuclear cleanup site, were to go to the polls Tuesday to decide who they want to fill the final months in the unexpired term of former Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.). Democratic Party candidate Max Della Pia goes up against Republican Joe […]