Contracts & Procurement

A new class action lawsuit was filed Monday against the Department of Energy on behalf of Hanford Site workers whose pension benefits were reduced when they were transferred from contractors and subcontractors at the Washington state facility to six “enterprise companies” in 1996. Attorney Douglas McKinley, of Kennewick, Wash., filed the lawsuit in the U.S. […]

McDermott International shareholders are to vote today on the company’s proposed acquisition of CB&I: one of two partners on the prime contractor for the embattled plutonium disposal plant being built at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The vote is part of a special shareholders meeting, the Houston-based engineering and construction company […]

A federal judge has decided to let the Department of Energy and a contractor argue in court about whether the agency was allowed to claw back some $20 million in fees on a long-overdue, over-budget plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina. That is according to a Friday order by U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas […]

Parsons has asked Energy Department officials to rescind a notice of concern that claimed significant mismanagement in the company’s work to start up the multibillion-dollar Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In an April 6 letter obtained by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Parsons SWPF project manager Frank Sheppard said […]

The Department of Energy is allowing an extra two weeks for submission of bids to build the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. A new amendment to the request for proposals, among other things, extends the deadline for submission to 3 p.m. Eastern time on May […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) became the new contractor in charge of legacy nuclear cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico effective Monday morning. A spokesperson for N3B President and Project Manager Nick Lombardo confirmed the news late Monday afternoon, saying the firm would issue a formal announcement later this […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory called a two-day time out on some of its plutonium work late last month after personnel put fissile material in the wrong containers, according to a report released late Friday by an independent federal nuclear-safety watchdog. Both mishaps took place in March at the New Mexico lab’s Plutonium Facility. During […]

Fluor Idaho said Friday it hopes to have a plan in place by the end of this week for the probe and initial site recovery for the April 11 breach of four drums of radioactive waste at the Energy Department’s Idaho Site. A plan for “investigation, sampling, and recovery” should be complete by May 4, […]

Contractor Parsons’ “degrading performance” while testing and commissioning the Savannah River Site’s $2 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) could push its start of operations back by several months, according to a notice of concern from the Department of Energy. Rather than the long-anticipated start of operations in December, Parsons’ data suggests SWPF should begin […]

Washington Closure Hanford and the Department of Justice received a final extension Friday to seal a settlement agreement in a civil lawsuit alleging the former Hanford Site contractor knowingly awarded small business subcontracts to front companies. Judge Sal Mendoza Jr. stayed the case in U.S. District Court in Eastern Washington until a June 8 hearing, […]

A House Armed Services subcommittee is seeking briefings every six months from the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM) regarding ongoing problems with toxic vapors at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “Over the past several years, many workers have reported suspicious odors and subsequent health effects,” the HASC strategic forces subcommittee said in […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management plans closer oversight of the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project after workers at the Utah site knowingly falsified certain records. Contractor North Wind Group has taken disciplinary action against the employees involved, a DOE spokesperson said in a Wednesday email, adding that more business ethics […]

The deadline has passed for revised proposals from the three teams that bid on the contract for liquid waste management services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to industry sources. The Energy Department requested the updated bids after one of the losing teams successfully protested the October 2017 award […]

Quality assurance problems continue to afflict the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) being built at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Tuesday. Some of the same quality assurance issues previously identified during a 2012 partial suspension of construction of the facility and a 2014 managed improvement plan […]

Four 55-gallon drums of radioactive waste ejected their lids due to excessive pressure on April 11 at the Accelerated Retrieval Project No. 5 (ARP 5) facility, Idaho Site cleanup contractor Flour Idaho confirmed this week. The Energy Department and the contractor had both indicated last week at least one drum, and possibly more, had been […]

The Hanford Site’s occupational medicine services provider earned 91.75 percent of the fee available for fiscal 2017, the Department of Energy announced last week. Kennewick, Wash.-based HPM Corp., a small, woman-owned business founded in 2001, earned $311,950 of the available $340,000. The contractor’s performance was rated about the same as in fiscal 2016. Then it […]

Joseph Henry, president and chief operating officer of BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Operations Group, will retire June 30, the company disclosed Monday in a regulatory filing. It was not immediately clear who would succeed the retired Navy admiral at the helm of the Lynchburg, Va.-based company’s nuclear manufacturing and fuel-enrichment business. “We will announce [Henry’s] successor […]

Alabama-based Caddell Construction will build a new office building in Albuquerque for more than 1,000 National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) employees under a contract worth a little under $150 million, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced this week. The Army Corps is procuring construction services for the planned Albuquerque Complex and managing the contract. […]

Citing declining health due to multiple sclerosis, and the need for 24-hour assistance, one of the men who defrauded the federal government while working for the Savannah River Site MOX project is hoping to avoid a prison sentence of up to five years. Phillip Thompson is instead requesting five years of probation, with the special […]

Fundamental physics research at the University of Texas at Austin will get a $7 million boost from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is funding the work under a 16 year-old program aimed at providing people with the technical qualifications to maintain U.S. nuclear weapons. The grant came from the NNSA Stewardship Science Academic Alliances […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Driven by strong results across its operations, Boeing on Wednesday reported a big increase in its bottom line and a solid gain in the top line in its first quarter, and the company boosted its guidance this year for earnings and cash. Net income was up 57 percent to $2.5 […]

The University of California submitted its best and final offer to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next decade, a spokesperson for the institution said last week. “It’s my understanding that all teams have submitted their final bids at this time,” the spokesperson wrote in an April 20 email to Nuclear Security & Deterrence […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Northrop Grumman on Wednesday opened its fiscal 2018 with solid results, driven by improved operating performance, lower taxes, and a pension benefit, and the company upgraded its earnings outlook for the year. Net income in the quarter was up 14 percent to $739 million, or $4.21 a share, from $650 […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Raytheon on Thursday posted strong first-quarter financial results, driven by lower taxes, and improved operating performance, and the company increased its guidance this year for sales and earnings. Lower taxes that went into effect on Jan. 1 have helped underpin solid to strong results for all the major defense companies […]

Alabama-based Caddell Construction will build a new office building in Albuquerque for more than 1,000 National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) employees under a contract worth a little under $150 million, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced late Tuesday. The Army Corps is procuring construction services for the planned Albuquerque Complex and managing the contract. The […]

Contractor Parsons’ “degrading performance” while testing and commissioning the Savannah River Site’s $2 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) could push its start of operations back by several months, according to a notice of concern from the Department of Energy. Rather than the long-anticipated beginning of operations in December, the facility now is expected to […]

A House Armed Services subcommittee is seeking briefings every six months from the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM) regarding ongoing problems with toxic vapors at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “Over the past several years, many workers have reported suspicious odors and subsequent health effects,” the HASC strategic forces subcommittee said in […]

The Energy Department has removed about 57 percent of the tailings from an old uranium concentrate production mill 3 miles northwest of Moab, Utah, according to the latest available figures. At the end of March, the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project had moved about 9.06 million tons of the estimated 16 million […]

James Canafax, senior vice president and general counsel for BWX Technologies, will leave the company around Aug. 1, according to a recent regulatory filing. The Harvard-schooled lawyer, who got his J.D. in 1996, has been with the company since 2001: nine years before it was spun off from McDermott International, according to his LinkedIn profile. […]

The deadline has passed for revised proposals from the three teams that bid on the contract for liquid waste management services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to industry sources. The Energy Department requested the updated bids after one of the losing teams successfully protested the October 2017 award […]