Vol. 30, No. 05

Cleanup & Remediation

Tab for Environmental Liability Outpacing Nuclear Cleanup Spending, GAO Says

Cleaning up the contamination left by Cold War nuclear weapons operations could cost the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) another $377 billion, or $109 billion more than last year’s estimate, the Government Accountability Office said in a report Tuesday. Agency cleanup officials interviewed by GAO are aware of the increase, but have not […]
  • Decommissioning

    Tearing Down West Valley Main Process Building Delayed Until Next Cleanup Contract

    While deactivation of the Main Plant Process Building at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York is nearly finished, demolition will be done under a successor to the current site cleanup contract held by CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley (CHBWV). The demolition was previously expected to start last year under the existing CHBWV contract. […]

  • Cleanup & Remediation

    Venture Awarded $4.8M Task Order for Test Bed Processing of Hanford Waste

    The Energy Department has awarded a 10-month, $4.8 million task order to Tennessee-based Aerostar Perma-Fix TRU Services for the second phase of the Test Bed Initiative (TBI) on disposal of radioactive waste from the Hanford Site in Washington state. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the cost-plus-fixed-fee task order under an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract […]

  • Transuranic Waste

    Livermore, Sandia Labs to Make First Shipments to WIPP Since Outage

    The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., is expected to receive 330 shipments of transuranic waste over the next 12 months, with some coming from sites that have not shipped material in years. The Energy Department and its WIPP contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership, held a breakfast presentation Monday for New Mexico lawmakers, […]

  • Cleanup & Remediation

    Hanford Cleanup Contractor Earns 80 Percent of Potential FY18 Fee

    Hanford Site cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. received just 80 percent of its available fee for fiscal 2018, after the Department of Energy called it out for the second year in a row over its performance at the Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition. CH2M is responsible for environmental remediation in Hanford’s Central Plateau, plus […]

  • Interim Storage & Waste Disposal

    ECA Urges Senate to Open its Purse for Waste Repository

    The nongovernmental organization representing communities near Department of Energy facilities is urging Senate leaders to commit to ending the federal government’s dithering over building a disposal facility for the nation’s nuclear waste. The United States holds roughly 100,000 metric tons of waste that by law must go into a permanent repository, which Congress in 1987 […]

  • High-Level & Tank Waste

    Savannah River to Triple Sludge Waste Treatment After SWPF Startup

    The Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) should produce 300 canisters of treated sludge waste per year once the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) comes online later in 2019. That would be significantly higher than the 136 canisters produced in fiscal 2016, the 52 in fiscal 2017, and 18 in the last fiscal […]

  • Contracts & Procurement

    Savannah River Contractors Each Earn More Than 90 Percent of Fee

    The incumbent management and operations contractor and the vendor in charge of liquid waste at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina both received at least 90 percent of their potential fee in new performance evaluations. Fluor-led site prime Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) and AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation both received “excellent” overall […]

  • Vitrification & Grout

    Updated Hanford Vit Plant Plan Does Not Demand Environmental Impact Supplement, DOE Says

    The Department of Energy has determined that its current operating plans for the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site do not require a supplement to a comprehensive 2012 supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) on radioactive tank waste at the Washington state cleanup complex. The agency concluded in a new analysis that altered plans for […]

  • Decommissioning

    California Criticizes DOE Environmental Study on Santa Susana

    The Department of Energy’s final environmental study for its share of cleanup at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory is inadequate and does not follow an agreement reached with California in 2010, state officials said this week. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) also asked DOE to accept comments on the final environmental impact […]

  • Transuranic Waste

    Oak Ridge Waste Processing Contractor Claims 97 Percent of Fee

    The contractor that manages the Transuranic Waste Processing Center at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee earned 97 percent of its potential award fee for a 12-month period ending in late October 2018. The Energy Department released the fee scorecard for North Wind Solutions this week. The company took home $382,749 of a […]

  • Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

    H Canyon Roofing Repairs at Savannah River to Cost $1M

    Roofing repairs at the Savannah River Site’s (SRS) H Canyon processing facility will begin this summer after rainwater dripped through a crack in the roof to the ground floor of the facility. The water became contaminated as it passed through the nuclear materials processing area on its way to the first level of the canyon, Monte […]

  • Decommissioning

    Arkansas Experimental Reactor Vessel Arrives in Nevada for Disposal

    The last big segment of the Southwest Experimental Fast-Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) has been uprooted from its Arkansas home and shipped to the Nevada Nuclear Security Site for disposal. The reactor vessel and remaining components from the 20-megawatt, sodium-cooled test reactor arrived at the NNSS on Dec. 13, according to a January report to the Department […]

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