Cleanup & Remediation

The monthly pace of retirement notices among prime contractor employees during 2021 at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state is up sharply compared with last year, especially in recent months, according to the two most recent monthly reports by the site’s services contractor. “The Retirement Program has had a significant increase in […]

A Lexington, Ky.-based small business, EHI Consultants, on Tuesday was issued a 5-year, $4.5-million contract to continue providing support services for certain advisory boards to the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. The firm-fixed contract renewal for EHI to continue providing staff support for the citizen advisory boards at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio […]

A lawsuit over the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s vaccine mandate will go on at least a little longer, now that a federal judge has allowed the plaintiffs until Dec. 22 to file a response to the lab prime contractor’s motion to dismiss the case. UT-Battelle, a team of the University of Tennessee and Battelle, is […]

A federal judge in Eastern Washington will hear oral arguments by telephone Dec. 17 on whether to issue a temporary restraining order that would put the brakes on potential firings by Department of Energy contractors of guards and other employees at the Hanford Site who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccination. U.S. District Judge Thomas […]

Out of perhaps 950-to-1,000 United Steelworkers members employed by various companies at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio between 10 and 15 are expected to be fired as a result of the COVID-19 vaccination mandate for federal contractors, a union official said Tuesday. It is always possible a couple of those heretofore […]

Andrew Richards, chief of staff for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, is leaving the agency after 10 years for a private-sector job, he told colleagues Monday. Richards’ last day was to be Tuesday, he said in an email viewed Tuesday by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. He did not identify his new employer […]

A story in the Nov. 29 Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“Oral Arguments Slated in Vaccination Mandate Suit Against SRNS”] should have said the hearing in the Savannah River Nuclear Solutions vaccination mandate case is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 30. 

A vaccine mandate by the Department of Energy’s management contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is tantamount to the contractor practicing medicine without a license, a lawyer for about 95 employees refusing to be inoculated against COVID-19 said in a legal filing Monday in federal court. Last week, on the day before […]

The Department of Energy has given the green light to a group led by Virginia-based BWX Technologies to begin a 90-day transition to take over liquid waste management and other work included under the Integrated Mission Completion Contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, an agency spokesperson said Monday morning. The notice was […]

It could be three to four years before the Department of Energy resumes taking regular shipments of highly radioactive, remote-handled transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., the top local federal manager said recently. During a virtual town hall-style meeting earlier this month for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), Reinhard […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: November 29 – Dec. 03 – Informal negotiations resume in Vienna about the Iran Nuclear Deal, from which the U.S. withdrew in 2017. Robert Malley, the U.S. special representative for Iran, will attend. 29 – Dec. […]

A federal district court judge in South Carolina will hear oral arguments Tuesday in litigation seeking to block the management and operations contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site from firing employees starting Nov. 30 for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Judge Michelle Childs issued an order Nov. 22 calling for about […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has now received 13,000 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste at the underground disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., since it opened in 1999, the agency said Tuesday. The shipment arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Nov. 11 from the Idaho National Laboratory, which has produced more […]

Virginia-based Akima Intra-Data withdrew its protest of the Department of Energy’s September award of a five-year, $135-million Infrastructure Support Services contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to North Wind Dynamics. Akima dropped the protest Nov. 16, according to a notice on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) website. The company protested the award on Oct. […]

While he is no longer acting assistant secretary, career fed William (Ike) White remains the top boss at the Department of Energy’s $7-billion-plus Office of Environmental Management as he has been for about two-and-a-half years, an agency spokesperson confirmed Monday. The latest DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) organizational chart dated Wednesday Nov. 17 shows […]

As it finishes digging for Manhattan Project-era contamination along a stretch of road by new housing developments, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is also putting finishing touches on a gameplan to deal with similar surprise contamination sites, a new report says. In February 2020, a few years after the lab transferred a 28-acre parcel of […]

For the second year in a row, concern over potential spread of COVID-19 has prompted cancellation of the public deer hunt at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. “Due to COVID-19, the 2021 Deer Hunt has been cancelled,” according to a recent “deer control activities”  notice posted on the Savannah River […]

The Department of Energy said in a Nov. 18 posting there will be a 120-day transition period for the winner of the potential $45-billion Integrated Tank Disposition Contract, at the Hanford Site in Washington state, to take over from the existing contractors. The final Request for Proposals issued last month included some incorrect references to […]

Two contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio are expected to send home dozens of union employees this week with plans to fire them for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19, a local United Steelworkers president at the site said Tuesday in a press release. To this, a spokesperson for remediation contractor […]

The top federal manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said COVID-19 infection rates are falling around the complex near the Georgia line. “The good news is for the first time in some time we have no one in the hospital,” Michael Budney, manager of the DOE Office of Environmental […]

As expected, the Washington state attorney general has filed formal arguments saying there is no need for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit an appeals court ruling that backed a state law boosting workers’ compensation eligibility for Hanford Site employees with certain work-related illnesses. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed his 45-page “brief in opposition” […]

The Small Business Administration again ruled that incumbent Swift and Staley is too large to be the next landlord services provider at the Department of Energy’s Paducah site, kicking the matter back to a federal court and keeping the company on site at least through February 2022. That’s according to filings in recent days with […]

Fluor Idaho, which is winding down its $2.3-billion cleanup contract at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, paused a test run with simulant at the long-anticipated Integrated Waste Treatment Unit due to visible emissions coming from a stack during heat-up, a manager with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality said via email Tuesday. As […]

Members of the Hanford Atomic Metals Trade Council at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state have ratified labor agreement extensions for much of the unionized workforces of four of the largest federal contractors at the nuclear cleanup site, according to a recent Facebook post by the council. “All four of the contractor’s […]

The Department of Energy expects to issue a finding by July 2022 on the practicality of solidifying 2,000 gallons of tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington using concrete-like grout, federal officials said during an online public meeting Thursday. But before DOE issues the finding, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was expected to check […]

Management and contractors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state were targeted in a lawsuit filed this week by a group of about 290 employees resisting a federal order to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Security guards and various other employees at the site filed suit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court of […]

The top federal manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said COVID-19 infection rates are falling around the complex near the Georgia line. “The good news is for the first time in some time we have no one in the hospital,” Michael Budney, manager of the DOE Office of Environmental […]

Former security guards and others at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site have withdrawn their federal lawsuit against current and former DOE contractors at the site, ending for now the plaintiffs’ complaint about serious misconduct such as “racketeering” at the former uranium enrichment plant. Plaintiffs filed a two-page notice of voluntary dismissal with the U.S. […]

Two contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio were expected to send home dozens of union employees this week with plans to fire them for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19, a local United Steelworkers president at the site said in a press release. Potentially, 50 United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1-689 members […]

Fluor Idaho, which is winding down its $2.3-billion cleanup contract at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, paused a test run of the long-anticipated Integrated Waste Treatment Unit due to visible emissions coming from a stack during heat-up, a manager with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality said via email Tuesday. As Fluor “started […]