Contracts & Procurement

As expected, the Department of Energy extended Centerra Group’s paramilitary security contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by two years. That is according to the most recent major contracts summary issued Monday, which says Centerra’s contract now runs through Oct. 7, 2024. A DOE spokesperson confirmed the contract extension in a Wednesday […]

The head of the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management field office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said Wednesday evening the agency could soon pick up its first contract option with the legacy cleanup contractor. “The Department of Energy is getting ready to award our first contract option period under our contract […]

With retirements and resignations depleting key worker ranks, a procurement manager with the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch said this week the feds should tap parent companies of prime contractors. “Attrition and retention challenges have recently increased the need for the Office of Environmental Management (EM) prime contractors to access corporate support resources to […]

The prime contractors for civilian nuclear-weapon sites get no “lasting benefit” from their corporate parent companies, the interests of which may conflict with national security, a small group of National Nuclear Security Administration employees wrote in a report dated September 2022. At the heart of the conflict, the six-member panel wrote in its report, is […]

The Department of Energy plans to extend by up to a year a contract with a small business based in Arlington, Va.,for cleanup planning at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York. On Oct. 20 DOE announced its intent to extend its contract with h SC&A through Nov. 17, 2023 if all options are […]

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, pledged last week to seek funds for possible replacement of a middle school closed three years ago after public disclosure of radioactive contamination on the campus near the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Manchin, who also sits on the Senate […]

Mark Martinez planned to retire as president of Mission Support and Test Services, the Honeywell-led prime contractor for the Nevada National Security Site, according to people familiar with Martinez’s plans. A spokesperson for Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS) did not reply to a request for comment. Martinez has been president of MSTS since the […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit planned to hear oral arguments at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Dec. 8 in Washington to consider whether Swift & Staley is  ineligible for a small business contract it won in 2020 for infrastructure support services at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky. The […]

Happy Friday, nuke-watchers, happy nuclear science week, and happy Formula One U.S. Grand Prix weekend, for those who celebrate. Before we head off into the weekend, here are some other stories that RadWaste Monitor was tracking this week from across the civilian nuclear power space. Industry and government figures this week celebrated Nuclear Science Week […]

Two research contractors at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal district court after being accused of filing false bills with the government.   Greenway Energy and Savannah River Consulting both agreed to accept a plea agreement in proceedings before U.S. District Judge Terry Wooten in Columbia, S.C. […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup procurement office last week laid out what type of foreign ownership and control disclosures bidders should be ready to provide when pursuing contracts in the weapons complex. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center in a seven-page document detailed the Foreign Ownership Control or Influence review that contractors […]

By Dan Parsons Two contractors were exposed to highly hazardous beryllium, a metal used in nuclear weapons, while performing renovations at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico recently.  On Aug. 30, the subcontractors, working in Building 983 room 122, a conference room, were not wearing proper personal protective equipment, Luke Frank, a spokesman for Sandia […]

The Department of Energy could be prepared to start transferring control of the Savannah River Site to its semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency in bits and pieces starting around 2023, a spokesperson at Washington headquarters said Monday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), which owns the Aiken, S.C., site now, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), […]

The Department of Energy expects it will be early 2023 before an Amentum-led contractor starts pretreating its third batch of low-level radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. An ongoing planned outage could take a few more months, a DOE spokesperson said by email Wednesday. That is longer than the agency’s characterization […]

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday denied a protest by a women owned small business seeking to overturn a $53-million award at the Y-12 National Security Complex to Sigma Science. Vector Resources — which lists its headquarters and mailing addresses in a pop-up business space in Erie, Pa., and a strip mall in Engelwood, Fla., […]

The Department of Energy in December plans to start a competition for a long-term contract to purchase energy-dense uranium fuel, with an eye toward awarding a deal in July, the agency told prospective bidders last week. In slides briefed during an Oct. 13 industry day and published online subsequently, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy said […]

The Department of Energy and its prime contractor for the two main U.S. civilian nuclear-weapons production sites agreed in early October to end a contractual dispute before it escalated to court, according to a recently published decision. According to a notice dated Oct. 6 and published subsequently, attorneys for the Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security […]

In the nine months just ended, renationalization of the U.K. nuclear weapons complex cost Lockheed Martin’s Space segment more than three quarters of a billion dollars, the company reported Tuesday. Bringing the British weapons program fully back into the government’s arms dropped sales in Lockheed Space by some $865 million over the past nine months, […]

The Department of Energy intends in November to start up the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory, the federal agency told state officials. That was the target DOE’s Office of Environmental Management gave officials with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on a conference call last week, Kim Custer, a senior […]

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to declare a federal emergency after the Hazelwood, Mo., school board voted to stop using a local elementary school near which radioactive contamination has been found from a Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program cleanup site. The Hazelwood Board of Education acted Tuesday night to close […]

The Department of Energy in December plans to start a competition for a long-term contract to purchase energy-dense uranium fuel, with an eye toward awarding a deal in July, the agency told prospective bidders last week. In slides briefed during an Oct. 13 industry day and published online subsequently, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy said […]

A hydrogen research contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal district court after being accused of filing false bills with the government.   Greenway Energy agreed to accept a plea agreement in proceedings before U.S. District Judge Terry Wooten in Columbia, S.C. and sentencing has been […]

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday denied a protest by a women owned small business seeking to overturn a $53-million award at the Y-12 National Security Complex to Sigma Science. Vector Resources — which lists its headquarters and mailing addresses in a pop-up business space in Erie, Pa., and a strip mall in Engelwood, Fla., […]

The Department of Energy expects it will be early 2023 before an Amentum-led contractor starts pretreating its third batch of low-level radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. An ongoing planned outage could take a few more months, a DOE spokesperson said by email Wednesday. That is longer than the agency’s characterization […]

In the nine months just ended, renationalization of the U.K. nuclear weapons complex cost Lockheed Martin’s Space segment more than three quarters of a billion dollars, the company reported Tuesday. Bringing the British weapons program fully back into the government’s arms dropped sales in Lockheed Space by some $865 million over the past nine months, […]

The Hanford Site in Washington state, the Department of Energy’s largest and most costly nuclear cleanup property, has been dubbed “Storm Ready” under a voluntary program with the National Weather Service, DOE said Tuesday. The National Weather Service program is meant to assist emergency managers at the former plutonium production complex beef up operations during […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants the Department of Energy to address by early January 2023 whether a contractor in Washington state is being rigorous enough in overseeing a system critical to solidifying liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site.  In an Oct. 6 letter from Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Chair Joyce […]

The Department of Energy intends in November to start up the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory, the federal agency told state officials. That was the target DOE’s Office of Environmental Management gave officials with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on a conference call last week, Kim Custer, a senior […]

The U.S. Department of Justice is opening a U.S. Attorney’s Office branch in Richland, Wash., near the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, Vanessa Waldref, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington said Friday. “The number of cases prosecuted by the Richland Division of my office has risen significantly over the last two decades,” Waldref […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup procurement office last week laid out what type of foreign ownership and control disclosures bidders should be ready to provide when pursuing contracts in the weapons complex. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center in a seven-page document detailed the Foreign Ownership Control or Influence review that contractors […]