Vol. 35, No. 01 
Mega-merger, procurements, protest, SRS and clean-energy loom in 2024
-
Transuranic Waste
Feds to contract WCS for 2 more years of stranded TRU storage
The Department of Energy plans to extend its deal with Waste Control Specialists through late 2026 for ongoing storage of stranded transuranic waste, stuck at the West Texas site for about a decade. In June 2023, DOE told the Texas attorney general’s office it plans to move its 74 containers of transuranic waste out of […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
Idaho cleanup boss Flohr to retire from DOE, take Navarro post
Connie Flohr, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup manager at the Idaho National Laboratory will retire from the federal government and take an industry job, a top executive at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told staff Wednesday. The pending departure of Flohr, a career fed and former budget official who became Idaho cleanup manager in […]
-
Vitrification & Grout
Grouting excess low-level waste still years away at Hanford Site, report says
While the Department of Energy is increasingly interested in using grout to solidify some low-level radioactive waste left from decades of plutonium production at its Hanford Site in Washington, operation of such a facility would not begin before the 2030s, according to a recent report. Various scenarios from DOE and its state regulator, the Washington […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
Outcome of megadollar Hanford tank contract rests with federal court, GAO says
With federal courts already involved, the Government Accountability Office will not consider an Atkins-led group’s challenge of a $45-billion Department of Energy award to manage liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “We dismiss the protest because the matter involved is the subject of litigation before a court of competent jurisdiction,” the […]
-
Contracts & Procurement
New contractor Inomedic Health takes over at Hanford
Following a 60-day transition, Virginia-based Inomedic Health Applications took over Monday as the new occupational medical services contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, an agency spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. The contractor will provide medical services to Hanford’s 10,000-person federal and contractor workforce. There are two clinics at Hanford. In October DOE […]
-
Contracts & Procurement
DOE plans to extend major Portsmouth, Paducah contracts
With the award of a follow-on contract taking longer than expected, the Department of Energy will extend major cleanup contracts at shuttered gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio and Kentucky for up to six months, the agency said after Christmas DOE’s Office of Environmental Management intends to extend Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s Decontamination and Decommissioning contract at the […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
Defense reply due next month in latest suit against Portsmouth contractors
Current and former Department of Energy contractors must reply by Feb. 5 to the latest lawsuit accusing them of not properly controlling off-site contamination from work at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. Plaintiff Joshua Shaw filed suit in federal district court in southern Ohio Nov. 27 accusing the Portsmouth Site contractors of violating the […]
-
Cleanup & Remediation
UCOR seeks to move Riggs COVID-19 case to federal appeals court
Over the holidays, the Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge site in Tennessee and a former employee there filed summary judgment motions in a COVID-19-related wrongful termination lawsuit. The prime, Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), argues that as a government contractor, it has sovereign immunity from the lawsuit filed by Yolonda […]
-
Innovation & Infrastructure
Wrap Up: Comments sought on Los Alamos power line; lab snow delays work; Centrus board member exits
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration is taking comments between now and Jan. 17 on plans for a new 14-mile electric power transmission line serving the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. A draft environmental assessment was published and public comment period commenced Dec. 19 on the Los Alamos National Laboratory Electrical […]