Cleanup & Remediation

A top federal manager for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said Monday the agency is continuing to investigate the cause of a July 4 spill of low-level radioactively contaminated water near H Canyon. “We are taking a very hard look at exactly what occurred,” Michael Budney, the DOE Office of […]

The Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has treated over 991,000 gallons of waste so far in fiscal 2022, a Department of Energy official told the Citizens Advisory Board for the site Monday.   “We just recently completed a planned outage,” July 12 at the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), […]

The Government Accountability Office is urging the Department of Energy to provide more details on how its nuclear weapons and cleanup programs handle federal funds carried over from prior-year budgets. At the end of fiscal 2021 the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) had about $3.2 billion in total carryover balances, and the National Nuclear […]

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth earned 75% of its total potential fee and about 82% of its subjective fee from the Department of Energy for its cleanup work at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio for the 12-month period ended March 28, according to a just-released scorecard. Overall, the contractor took home $16.6 million out of a potential $22.1 […]

Congress should enact legislation to clarify the Department of Energy’s authority to sell depleted uranium to private entities, the Government Accountability Office said this week, because such a move could curb the $7.2 billion cost to dispose of the material. As of September 2021, the feds estimate it could cost DOE $7.2 billion to convert […]

Congress should enact legislation to clarify the Department of Energy’s authority to sell depleted uranium to private entities, the Government Accountability Office said this week, because such a move could curb the $7.2 billion cost to dispose of the material. As of September 2021, the feds estimate it could cost DOE $7.2 billion to convert […]

Senate appropriators on Thursday rejected proposed cuts to cleanup programs at Department of Energy nuclear-weapon sites in a spending bill that would provide around half a billion dollars more than either this year’s budget or the White House’s request for next year. The proposed energy and water appropriations act, published Thursday, would also go above […]

Congress should enact legislation to clarify the Department of Energy’s authority to sell depleted uranium to private entities, the Government Accountability Office said this week, because such a move could curb the $7.2 billion cost to dispose of the material. As of September 2021, the feds estimate it could cost DOE $7.2 billion to convert […]

U.S. District Judge Julianna Michelle Childs, who presided over a number of Department of Energy nuclear cases in South Carolina, and who was publicly discussed as a contender for a U.S. Supreme vacancy, has won confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Childs was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit […]

With the retirement of a top executive, Sharon Smoot will step in as president of BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Operations Group effective Aug. 1, the company said in a press release Wednesday morning. In her new role, Smoot will be responsible for the operations group’s complete range of nuclear components and services, “including the manufacture of […]

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth earned 75% of its total potential fee and about 82% of its subjective fee from the Department of Energy for its cleanup work at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio for the 12-month period ended March 28, according to a just-released scorecard. Overall, the contractor took home $16.6 million out of a potential $22.1 […]

The Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has treated over 991,000 gallons of waste so far in fiscal 2022, a Department of Energy official told the Citizens Advisory Board for the site Monday.   “We just recently completed a planned outage,” July 12 at the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), […]

The Government Accountability Office is urging the Department of Energy to provide more details on how its nuclear weapons and cleanup programs handle federal funds carried over from prior-year budgets. At the end of fiscal 2021 the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) had about $3.2 billion in total carryover balances, and the National Nuclear […]

Street Legal Industries, a woman-owned small business based in Oak Ridge, Tenn., has landed two contracts together worth up to $3 million for support services at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, according to notices posted last week on a federal procurement website, SAM.gov. The general services work includes a wide range […]

A top federal manager for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said Monday the agency is continuing to investigate the cause of a July 4 spill of low-level radioactively contaminated water near H Canyon. “We are taking a very hard look at exactly what occurred,” Michael Budney, the DOE Office of […]

The Department of Energy has extended by one week, until 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Aug. 1, the bid deadline for the Portsmouth Paducah Project Office Operations and Site Mission Support Contract, potentially worth $2.9 billion over 10 years. The earlier deadline for proposals was today for the contract that includes conversion of depleted uranium […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: 24-28 – Institute for Nuclear Materials Management, Virtual Annual Meeting. No in-person participation. Registration required and to be available here. 25: The Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board in South Carolina starts a two-day meeting at […]

Anyone visiting indoor facilities at Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites in coming days should probably take along an approved face mask as COVID-19 community transmission rates are high in most locations. The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management requires masks be worn indoors when local community rates are high as measured by the […]

A federal district judge in Eastern Washington this week approved an unopposed request allowing the Department of Energy another year-and-a-half to start solidifying certain radioactive tank waste into glass and other work for the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant. The ruling Tuesday by Senior U.S. District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson means DOE and contractor Bechtel […]

The Department of Energy confirmatory test run for the much-anticipated Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory will likely end around the end of July, a state official said recently. “The [Integrated Waste Treatment Unit] continues to run and will do so for approximately two more weeks,” Kim Custer, a senior hazardous waste […]

The Department of Energy intends to extend its existing paramilitary security contract with a Centerra company at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina for up to two years, according to a recent notice. The Savannah River Operations Office plans to keep on longtime security provider Centerra Group, up to 24 months, which translates to […]

The U.S. Department of Justice filed written arguments last week saying a federal appeals court should uphold a lower court’s decision that Swift & Staley failed to meet size limits for a set-aside landlord contract at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky. Kentucky-based Swift & Staley, on the other hand, wants the U.S. […]

The liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site said Monday it had processed more than 366,000 gallons of liquid waste in the Tank-Side Cesium Removal system, which prepares waste for solidification in the nearby Waste Treatment and Vitrification Plant that DOE hopes to switch on in 2023. That was according to a […]

Like the U.S. Department of Energy, the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is in the market for local communities open to hosting an underground disposal facility for radioactive waste. “Our mission goes beyond existing sites,” David Peattie, CEO of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said in a recent annual report for 2021-2022. The NDA is […]

The legacy cleanup contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in August plans to start the site’s largest radioactive waste extraction effort in more than a decade, a company executive told a federal advisory board Thursday. Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) vice president Joe Legare said in August the contractor […]

The House of Representatives voted 220-207 Wednesday to approve the 2023 Energy and Water Appropriations Act, which includes $7.9 billion for the Department of Energy’s cleanup of Cold War and Manhattan Project sites. With a little more than two months left in fiscal 2022, the package of six spending bills, including funds for DOE’s Office […]

Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation took home about $16 million of a potential $16.8 million for its final review period as the Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to a fee scorecard, issued Thursday. Savannah River Remediation (SRR) earned $1.5 million out of a potential $1.7 million in […]

In a few years, the Department of Energy could make its practices for categorizing hazards found in nuclear facilities a formal federal rule, the agency wrote in a recent letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. DOE would not begin the rulemaking until 2025 at the earliest, according to the June 27 letter to […]

The legacy cleanup contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in August plans to start the site’s largest radioactive waste extraction effort in more than a decade, a company executive told a federal advisory board Thursday. Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) vice president Joe Legare said in August the contractor […]

A federal district judge in Eastern Washington this week approved an unopposed request allowing the Department of Energy another year-and-a-half to start solidifying certain radioactive tank waste into glass and other work for the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant. The ruling Tuesday by Senior U.S. District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson means DOE and contractor Bechtel […]