Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The total civil penalties imposed by the state of Idaho against the Department of Energy for failing to treat sodium-bearing waste at the Idaho National Laboratory now exceeds $10 million, a state official said this week. As of March 31, the assessed penalty will hit $10,062,000, Natalie Creed, hazardous waste bureau chief for the Idaho […]

Following a protest by a rival bidder with the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Energy is taking a second look at the $1-billion security contract it awarded last month to a joint venture led by Securitas CIS for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. A notice posted on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) […]

After a former lobbyist accused him of sexual harassment, Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), whose 23rd congressional district includes the West Valley Demonstration Project, will retire from the House of Representatives rather than run for re-election, the lawmaker announced via Twitter on Sunday. Reed further said he will not seek any political office in 2022. The […]

Anyone who wants to testify about or provide technical comments on the planned new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant during a hearing scheduled for May 17 should let the New Mexico Environment Department know by May 3, the state agency said.  Late last week, the New Mexico Environment Department filed a formal […]

The prime contractor for liquid-waste cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state is looking for a subcontractor to transport and dispose of non-radioactive waste this fall from test runs of the site’s main treatment plant. The contract will be worth $900,000 over one year beginning Oct. 1, 2021, Amentum-led Washington River […]

Design work on a $50-million research center for nuclear cleanup at the University of South Carolina at Aiken should start later this year, the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Advisory Board heard this week. The Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative, to be built about 20 miles north of the Savannah River Site, “is now fully funded” after […]

The Department of Energy is extending North Wind Solutions’ transuranic waste processing work by up to 24 months at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, according to a recently-posted notice on a federal procurement website. The DOE issued its justification for issuing the extension, without a full and open competition, on Thursday although the actual […]

David Turk was sworn in this week as the deputy secretary of energy after clearing the Senate with only two Republicans in opposition. Turk took the oath, administered by his boss, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, on Thursday. The full Senate approved his nomination Wednesday 98-2, with only Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rand Paul […]

The head of the joint venture that manages the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site expects the rate of employee COVID-19 vaccinations to go from a trickle to a steady stream in the near future. “We have about 1,500 folks that have an appointment ready to go for their vaccinations,” within the next couple of […]

The U.S. Senate Monday voted 51-to-40 to confirm Rep. Debra Haaland (D-N.M.) as secretary of interior, which will create a vacancy in the congressional district that includes the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories facilities in Albuquerque. An Associated Press article Tuesday in the San Antonio Express-News reported Tuesday former State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn […]

The conversion of depleted uranium hexafluoride at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky came to a stop in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and had yet to restart as of last week, federal and contractor representatives said during an online conference. Neither Zachary Lafontaine, DOE’s program […]

Jim Bittner is taking over as vice president and general manager for BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Operations Groups’ Lynchburg, Va., manufacturing facility, which manufactures reactors for naval aircraft carriers and submarines, the company announced Monday. Bittner will be in charge of about 2,200 employees in Lynchburg, which is one of the two commercial facilities certified by the Nuclear […]

The Department of Energy, Washington State and the Environmental Protection Agency are meeting more frequently these days to negotiate changes to legally binding Hanford cleanup deadlines that longstanding technical challenges — and later, COVID-19 — may have made untenable, a Washington state official said Wednesday. “I am optimistic on some progress we have made,” Bowen […]

The Department of Energy could formally reply to subcontractor complaints at the Hanford Site in Washington state “within the next few days or the next few weeks,” Brian Vance, the top manager at the facility said Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management executive made his comments during a virtual meeting of the Hanford Advisory […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said Friday there were 153 active confirmed cases of COVID-19 at its operations this week — and that the tally it provided last week, 101, was off by more than 50 cases. The actual number from last week, discovered via audit, was 168, an Environmental Management (EM) […]

A Department of Labor board last week ruled against a Hanford contractor’s appeal of a 2016 decision favoring two whistleblowers at the former plutonium production site in Washington state. Labor’s Administrative Review Board on March 10 upheld federal Administrative Law Judge Christopher Larson’s 2016 ruling that Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) experts Kirtley Clem and Matthew […]

After receiving final go-ahead from the state, contractor North Wind Portage started demolition this week on one the four remaining contaminated buildings within the Department of Energy’s portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, California. Demolition of Building 4038 started Monday and will take a month to complete, the California Department of […]

Bechtel National earned 70%, or $5.54 million out of a potential $7.88 million, for its work on the Waste Treatment Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state in 2020. That is according to a fee scorecard released this week by the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management for the 2020 calendar year.  […]

During a brief appearance at an online conference Tuesday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm simultaneously praised and challenged the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup community. “This industry is made up of some of the nation’s best engineers and scientists,” Granholm told the Waste Management Symposia conference, which in non-pandemic years happens in Phoenix. At the same […]

The Department of Energy could lengthen contract transition periods under the new procurement model, possibly to 120 days, federal officials said Wednesday during the online Waste Management Symposia. Transition to the Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. venture at the Hanford Site in Washington state, which ended in January, showed 60 days is insufficient to sort […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee unanimously approved David Turk to be deputy secretary of energy in a roll call vote Thursday, clearing the way for the full Senate to confirm the former Biden staffer and Obama administration official for the agency’s No. 2 job. The Senate had not scheduled a confirmation vote for […]

While General Atomics, GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse Government Services are companies that know their way around nuclear reactors, representatives from the firms said this week they find it tough to penetrate the procurement market for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.   But the DOE Environmental Management (EM) office wants to increase the contractor pool […]

Dae Chung, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) associate principal deputy assistant secretary for corporate services, defended his organization’s small business record during the online Waste Management Symposia this week. His comments come after a U.S. senator, among others, complained that new procedures seem to be hurting small contractors in Washington state […]

The Department of Energy’s long-awaited Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory could start operating in mid-fall, perhaps October, a Fluor Idaho executive told the online Waste Management Symposia this week. The facility is now in the final weeks of an extended maintenance period that will precede a 50-day test run and eventual […]

With top managers stressing the need to remain vigilant, the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management had 101 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 within the past week, continuing a downward trend that started in late January.  The figure, shared via email Thursday by an Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson, reflects a sizable drop from the […]

Best known as a military shipbuilder, Huntington Ingalls Industries has been part of the Department of Energy’s weapons complex since 2008 and hopes to expand its foothold in the sector, the president of the company’s nuclear and environmental services group said Thursday. The parent of Newport News Nuclear also has an “aspirational” interest in breaking […]

Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based RSI Services is the winner of a potential five-year, $22-million small business contract to remediate Naval Reactors sites overseen by the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration in West Milton, N.Y. The set-aside cleanup contract for the Kesselring Site was announced Tuesday by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Under the […]

Teams will soon be finalized to compete for the Department of Energy’s potential $26-billion Hanford Integrated Tank Disposition Contract in Washington state, three industry sources said recently. Two of the three expect a very small number of teams, perhaps as few as two, will be in the mix for the contract arising from the draft […]