Contracts & Procurement

The Energy Department withdrew its state permit application for the Hanford Site Test Bed Initiative last week after the Washington state Department of Ecology sought federal-state negotiations over tank waste remediation. In a May 29 letter, Ecology Director Maia Bellon told Anne Marie White, the departing DOE assistant secretary for environmental management, that it was […]

The Energy Department published its justification May 31 for contracting a Centrus Energy subsidiary to demonstrate high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) production without competitive bidding. The federal government wants to deploy a 16-machine cascade at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to demonstrate production of 19.75% enriched uranium fuel by June 2022 using domestic technology. Centrus’ […]

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee along with state Attorney General Bob Ferguson voiced their opposition Thursday to the Energy Department’s decision to reinterpret the definition of high-level radioactive waste at the Hanford Site and elsewhere in the weapons complex. Washington currently holds 60% of the nation’s high-level waste with 56 million gallons stored in 177 underground […]

The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor was under no obligation to rehire a former employee, the company wrote in a recent letter objecting to a magistrate judge’s opinion in a 2016 lawsuit. Savannah River Remediation (SRR) added that it did not discriminate against former employee Adrienne Saulsberry, who is black, when it opted not […]

Don’t expect another Senate-confirmed nominee during President Donald Trump’s current term to succeed Anne Marie White at the helm of the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management. That was the assessment offered this week by several observers of the DOE weapons complex. The chances of the White House finding a qualified and willing candidate – […]

The Waste Control Specialists (WCS) site in Andrews County, Texas is still an attractive potential home for thousands of metric tons of elemental mercury. That’s according to a supplemental analysis published Monday by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. The document says facilities at WCS would still be a good option for storage of up to […]

The long-anticipated start of a facility to treat sodium-bearing liquid radioactive and hazardous waste at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory recently took another step toward reality, Fluor Idaho said. The contractor said Tuesday it finished a 50-day demonstration of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU). During the longest trial run to date the plant […]

National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia appointed D.E. “Dori” Ellis deputy director of the nation’s nuclear-weapons-technology lab, the Honeywell-owned lab-manager announced Wednesday. Ellis will be the lab’s No. 2 executive behind director Stephen Younger. She will replace David Douglass, who will retire in June, according to a lab press release. Ellis is a longtime Sandia […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has officially picked up the tab to keep the JASON group of independent scientists alive, awarding MITRE Corp. on Thursday an eight-month, $5-million contract to perform three nuclear-security studies, an agency spokesperson said. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “has awarded a short-term, sole-source contract to the MITRE Corp. for […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is laying the groundwork to acquire the three custom-built gloveboxes needed for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition program: the proposed replacement for the cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Under the currently unfunded and unauthorized program, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would install the gloveboxes at Savannah […]

WASHINGTON — While leadership is changing at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management, a recently-initiated approach to procurement remains in place. Some people have inquired recently if the end state contracting approach is still in effect, Norbert Doyle, deputy assistant secretary, acquisition and project management, told the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus here Wednesday evening […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is laying the groundwork to acquire the three custom-built gloveboxes needed for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition program: the proposed replacement for the cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Under the currently unfunded and unauthorized program, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would install the gloveboxes at Savannah […]

National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia appointed D.E. “Dori” Ellis deputy director of the nation’s nuclear-weapons-technology lab, the Honeywell-owned lab-manager announced Wednesday. Ellis will be the lab’s No. 2 executive behind director Stephen Younger. She will replace David Douglass, who will retire in June, according to a lab press release. Ellis is a longtime […]

The long-anticipated start of a facility to treat sodium-bearing liquid radioactive and hazardous waste at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory recently took another step toward reality, Fluor Idaho said. The contractor said last week it finished a 50-day demonstration of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU). During the longest trial run to date the […]

The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor was under no obligation to rehire a former employee, the company wrote in a recent letter objecting to a magistrate judge’s opinion in a 2016 lawsuit. Savannah River Remediation (SRR) added that it did not discriminate against former employee Adrienne Saulsberry, who is black, when it opted not […]

The Energy Department Friday published its justification for contracting a Centrus Energy subsidiary to demonstrate high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) production without competitive bidding. The federal government wants to deploy a 16-machine cascade at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to demonstrate production of 19.75% enriched uranium fuel by June 2022 using domestic technology. Centrus’ American […]

A class-action lawsuit filed in federal court this week accuses current and former Energy Department contractors of failure to prevent radioactive contamination from spreading beyond the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The case was initiated by two families in Pike County, where the former uranium enrichment complex is located. One of the families has a child […]

A federal judge says he plans by the first week of June to rule on a Department of Justice lawsuit against the state of Washington over eased workers’ compensation requirements for workers at the Hanford Site. Judge Stanley Bastian, of U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, heard arguments May 22 from the parties. He reminded […]

The Savannah River Site’s $2.3 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) remains on track to begin operations by the end of this year, despite a more conservative unofficial date of May 2020 cited in a document prepared by the site’s liquid waste contractor. Neither DOE nor salt waste contractor Parsons, have announced any further delay […]

Fluor is bringing back a retired chief financial officer, Michael Steuert, to permanently fill the role again as current CFO Bruce Stanski assists the Dallas-area company’s new chief executive with a strategic review. The international engineering, procurement, and construction company also announced Monday that Mark Fields will become the new president of its energy and […]

Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White has resigned effective June 14. In an email obtained by Weapons Complex Monitor, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette confirmed widespread industry chatter that White is leaving the agency after less than two years. The same email, distributed to a DOE mailing list, confirmed longtime […]

The Energy Department Thursday issued a “sources sought” notice seeking market input on a revamped liquid waste procurement at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The agency is seeking responses by 5 p.m. ET on June 13 to its market research inquiry on what it now calls the Integrated Mission Completion Contract. The Energy […]

The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor is expected to argue next month that race did not factor into its unwillingness to rehire a laid-off employee who sued the company over her termination. A court hearing for Adrienne Saulsberry’s lawsuit against her former employer, Savannah River Remediation (SRR), is scheduled for June 25 in Aiken, […]

It should take anywhere from two to four weeks to fully analyze the Energy Department’s new sampling for radioactive contaminants at a middle school near the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The results should be publicly provided as soon as they are available, Pike County Health Commissioner Matt Brewster said in a Wednesday email. A team […]

MOX Services will not receive any interest payments on $20 million in clawed-back fees the shrinking company won from the Department of Energy in a lawsuit over the agency’s cancellation of a controversial plutonium disposal plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler handed down the […]

It should take anywhere from two to four weeks to fully analyze the Energy Department’s new sampling for radioactive contaminants at a middle school near the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The results should be publicly provided as soon as they are available, Pike County Health Commissioner Matt Brewster said in a Wednesday email. A team […]

Fluor is bringing back a retired chief financial officer, Michael Steuert, to permanently fill the role again as current CFO Bruce Stanski assists the Dallas-area company’s new chief executive with a strategic review. The international engineering, procurement, and construction company also announced Monday that Mark Fields will become the new president of its energy and […]

A team of certified health physicists from the Energy Department spent the Memorial Day weekend in Piketon, Ohio, collecting air samples that will be analyzed for signs of radioactive contamination at a local middle school. Forty-four air samples were collected both inside and outside of Zahn’s Corner Middle School, about 2 miles from DOE’s Portsmouth […]

The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor is expected to argue next month that race did not factor into its unwillingness to rehire a laid-off employee who sued the company over her termination. A court hearing for Adrienne Saulsberry’s lawsuit against her former employer, Savannah River Remediation (SRR), is scheduled for June 25 in Aiken, […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding held a ceremony on May 23 for its first cut-of-steel event to mark the start of advance construction for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) program. HII noted this will be the first class of submarines that will be built using fully digital blueprints. The first steel plate will be used […]