Cleanup & Remediation

In a milestone for U.S. nuclear-weapons cleanup in Washington State, the Department of Energy since Jan. 26 has prepared 50,000 gallons of liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site for solidification into stable, storable glass as soon as December 2023. By the end of the year, DOE and its contractors hope the new Tank Side […]

The Department of Energy’s latest best- and worst-case estimates for fully cleaning up the Hanford Site in Washington State were each several tens of billions of dollars lower than the previous estimate, though the calculation released this week does not fully include the cost of delays to the site’s crucial High-Level Waste Facility. The feds […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has hauled away the last of demolition debris from buildings torn down last year at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site in Southern California, according to a Tuesday release. Trucks carrying the waste from buildings within DOE’s Energy Technology Engineering Center northwest of Los Angeles rolled out […]

The Government Accountability Office has denied a protest by a group called Oak Ridge Environmental Partners that challenged the Department of Energy’s  $8.3-billion Cleanup Contract issued in October to United Cleanup Oak Ridge, a team led by Amentum and Jacobs, the current incumbents at the Tennessee site. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) notice dated Tuesday […]

Six employees at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory who refused COVID-19 vaccine are assured of their day in court after obtaining a right to sue from a federal agency, the judge in the case confirmed Monday. The six plaintiffs filed an amended complaint Jan. 4 against the University of Tennessee- Battelle partnership (UT-Battelle) operating the […]

The Department of Energy’s prime contractor for the Savannah River Site has agreed to a plan with federal and South Carolina regulators for final cleanup of a 25-mile stretch of radiologically contaminated stream. The affected area includes the Lower Three Runs stream, which begins near the center of the federal complex near the Georgia line, […]

The Department of Energy’s $7.5-billion nuclear cleanup office appears to be inching closer to a small business solicitation for Technical Assistance Contracts for three or more field sites, according to a procurement website that went online within the past week. The Office of Environmental Management (EM) previously said in a Dec. 27 notice to expect […]

Local governments and school boards are working with a Washington, D.C.-based interest group to ensure the two highly-contaminated nuclear sites in their areas receive Payments in Lieu of Taxes in the fiscal 2023 budget request the Joe Biden administration sends to Congress in several weeks. The locals, with support of the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA), […]

The Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Advisory Board will stick around for at least two more years, according to a Federal Register notice published last week. The advisory board is being renewed for a two-year period that began Jan. 14, according to the Jan. 21 notice, which said the action is taken under the Federal […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management plans to award new contracts this year at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Moab uranium tailings site in Utah and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the office said in its recent list of 2022 priorities. The biggest prize is the potential $45-billion, […]

Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the prime in charge of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, garnered an “excellent” scorecard from the feds and took home about $38.8 million, or 96%, of its potential fee for the last 10 months of fiscal 2021. Meanwhile, Battelle Savannah River Alliance, the new spinoff […]

Centerra-Savannah River Site, security provider at the Department of Energy site in South Carolina, won $6.4 million or 95% of a potential $6.7 million fee for a 12-month period ended Oct.7, according to a new DOE scorecard. “Throughout this performance period, Centerra-SRS executed the Site security mission at an excellent level of proficiency,” DOE said […]

The former head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office is headed to the C-Suite of Westinghouse Electric, the company announced Tuesday. Rita Baranwal, assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) from July 2019 to January 2021, was appointed chief technology officer at Westinghouse, according to a press release dated Tuesday. In […]

This week, some 292 plaintiffs, many working in security at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington, filed a new complaint in their federal lawsuit opposing government vaccine mandates. But attorneys for the federal government replied the same day with a motion to dismiss the new complaint, saying it is little better than the […]

The Department of Energy and its environmental management contractor at the Idaho National Laboratory hope to resume a test run of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit by the end of the month, an Idaho state official said Thursday. As of Tuesday Jan. 18, managers at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) envisioned having a nitrogen […]

An article in the Jan. 13 Weapons Complex Morning Briefing  [“Tank-side Cesium Removal at Hanford Tracking January Startup”] should have reported subcontractor AVANTech designed the Tank-Side Cesium Removal project at the Hanford Site in Washington state. An article in the same edition, [“Settlement Talks Extended Until April in NMED-DOE Suit Over Los Alamos Cleanup”] should […]

The U.S. Supreme Court this week agreed to hear the Department of Justice’s challenges to a Washington state law that made it easier for cleanup workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to claim compensation for certain occupational illnesses. The highest court in the land, an independent branch of the federal government, said Monday […]

Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) wants Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to provide details about a Department of Energy plan to bury certain nuclear waste, now at the Idaho National Laboratory, at the Nevada National Security Site. Titus said she was caught off guard by federal plans for the shipments from Idaho to the Nevada National […]

State and federal settlement talks about revamping the 2016 consent order for legacy cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico will continue into early April, according to a status report filed this month with a federal court. Representatives from the New Mexico Department of Environment (NMED) and DOE Office […]

Construction and commissioning of key nuclear-cleanup facilities headline the Department of Energy’s goals for calendar year 2022, according to the Environmental Management (EM) Office’s recently-published list of priorities.  Among these are two big projects at the Hanford Site in Washington state. There, EM intends to finish cold commissioning of the first of two melters at […]

Preparations for a 50-day test-run of a crucial liquid-waste treatment system at the Department of Energy’s Idaho site were cut short Christmas Eve because someone installed an open/closed indicator on the unit’s plumbing backwards, according to the site. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), designed to solidify some 850,000 gallons of sodium-bearing, radioactive waste leftover […]

An ongoing federal study into alternative liquid-waste cleanup at the Hanford Site in Washington state should focus narrowly on finding the fastest way to get rid of low-level radioactive waste that can’t be solidified by the site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, a national academies panel recommended last week. The waste treatment plant, which is […]

State and federal settlement talks about revamping the 2016 consent order for legacy cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico will continue into early April, according to a status report filed this month with a federal court. Representatives from the New Mexico Department of Environment (NMED) and DOE Office […]

With the New Mexico Environment Department suing the Department of Energy over a 2016 consent order on legacy waste cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the head of an advocacy group last week questioned why the state is negotiating with the feds over remediation milestones. The New Mexico Environment Department has filed suit against […]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear the Department of Justice’s challenges to a Washington state law that made it easier for cleanup workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to claim compensation for certain occupational illnesses. The highest court in the land, an independent branch of the federal government, said Monday […]

What was shaping up to be a productive trial run of the long-delayed Integrated Waste Unit was cut short just after New Year’s, about a third of the way through its planned duration, because of weather-related supply-chain issues, a state official said Monday. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) started its 50-day run, loaded with […]

An ongoing federal study into alternative liquid-waste cleanup at the Hanford Site in Washington state should focus narrowly on finding the fastest way to get rid of low-level radioactive waste that can’t be solidified by the site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, a national academies panel recommended last week. The waste treatment plant, which is […]

The Department of Energy Thursday announced plans to solicit Technical Assistance Contracts for several Office of Environmental Management Field Sites within the next 60 days. Requests for proposals could be released by early to mid-March for small business set-aside contracts at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York, the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial […]

Since the confirmed, domestic start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has confirmed 7,916 cases of the illness among the agency’s workforce, a spokesperson said Thursday. Likewise, the latest weekly total of confirmed cases is 313, a whopping jump of 242 since the office’s last weekly […]

The Department of Energy has picked up the first two-year option in its agreement with HPM Corp., the incumbent provider of occupational medical services to thousands of federal and contractors at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The three-year base period of the potential seven-year, $152-million contract with Kennewick. Wash.,-based HPM Corp. (HPMC), was due […]