Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The Department of Energy’s top brass joined the governor of Tennessee, congressmen and local dignitaries Tuesday at the Oak Ridge Site to celebrate taking down contaminated facilities at what was once the K-25 uranium enrichment complex and is now the East Tennessee Technology Park. The ceremony happened two days before two members of Energy Secretary […]

The Department of Energy is seeking to hold contractors accountable for high ethical standards and professional practices, executives at the Office of Environmental Management said publicly this week and last.  Hanford Site in Washington state can use education along with the specter of financial loss in pushing ethical standards for contractors, the site’s federal manager, […]

Two members of the security detail for Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday, a spokeswoman for the agency chief said. “Although Secretary Brouillette tested negative and is not exhibiting symptoms, out of an abundance of caution, the Secretary and traveling staff will be returning by vehicle to Washing and following” guidance […]

While some work at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, contract procurement has hardly missed a beat, officials told an online industry conference this week. Thus far in 2020 there have been “almost no drop offs [and] ironically enough, almost some acceleration” in contract solicitations and […]

Nuclear cleanup contractors for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management received $426-million during fiscal 2020 to help cushion the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for employees not able to report to work. That’s according to a spokesperson for the agency’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). The figure represents reimbursements EM paid to […]

The Department of Energy is giving potential bidders until Dec. 1 to respond to a final request for proposals for a new five-year infrastructure support services contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) issued the request for proposals (RFP) notice Tuesday. The DOE nuclear cleanup branch said in […]

Officials at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory are looking into Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board concerns that the New Mexico site should do more to minimize the risk of a transuranic waste drum explosion. The board, in a letter dated Sept. 24, found that safety bases for both DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear […]

The Department of Energy said in a Tuesday Federal Register notice that it is withdrawing its designation of Waste Control Specialists in West Texas as its long-term storage site for elemental mercury. The DOE and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality previously granted the necessary approvals for the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) site in Andrews […]

As of mid-week, there had been a total of 175 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, Hanford Site Manager Brian Vance said Wednesday during a webcast advisory board meeting. Vance, the Hanford site manager, provided the number in response to a question from a member of the […]

Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. kicked off its 60-day transition period this week to become the new major remediation contractor at the Central Plateau area of Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, under a potential 10-year, $10-billion agreement. On Dec. 4 the joint venture comprising Amentum, Fluor and Atkins will take over from […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state needs to be better prepared to cope with additional failure of single-shell tanks holding radioactive wastes, according to the agency’s Office of Inspector General. That is a key takeaway from a report, dated Sept. 30 and posted this week. If many existing underground tanks fail there […]

The liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina hired 151 new employees with an average age of 37 during fiscal 2020. As a result, the average age of the 2,600-person workforce at Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation (SRR) is 48-years old, Phil Breidenbach, president & project manager of the […]

Hot commissioning of the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is underway, the agency said this week in a press release. On Monday afternoon, Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation, the Savannah River Site (SRS) liquid waste contractor, transferred 4,000 gallons of waste from the H Tank Farm […]

Unhappy with the proposals it has seen to date from the Department of Energy, the New Mexico Environment Department is moving toward dispute resolution to bridge differences over cleanup milestones at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The state is invoking dispute resolution over remediation milestones for 2021 under the parties’ 2016 compliance order on consent. […]

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has released its record of decision for cleaning up contaminated soil on its portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, Calif. Like Boeing, and the Department of Energy, NASA is one of three parties responsible for cleanup of the sprawling research site in the Simi Valley. […]

Joe Franco, the Department of Energy’s deputy manager at the Hanford Site’s Richland Operations Office in Washington state, is leaving the agency to become a special adviser to the prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Amentum-led Nuclear Waste Partnership said in a Thursday press release that Franco will become special adviser to the […]

Nuclear Waste Partnership’s current eight-year, $2.4-billion contract for management and operation of the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is being extended for at least one more year, potentially two. The DOE and Amentum-led Nuclear Waste Partnership agreed Sept. 15 to a one-year option through Sept. 30, 2021, contractor spokesman Donavan […]

A Department of Energy advisory board is drafting a report to help the Office of Environmental Management develop a complex-wide priorities list for nuclear cleanup complex. The DOE Environmental Management Advisory Board could vote later this fall on a subcommittee report into how to make remediation of 16 Cold War and Manhattan Project sites more […]

Idaho-based North Wind Group got a three-year, $4.5-million task order for cleanup work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced the small-business set-aside award to North Wind this week in a press release. The new task order was issued under an existing indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract […]

The Department of Energy Tuesday awarded a joint venture led by Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Navarro Research and Engineering a $389-million contract to run the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration is a team of Navarro and Advanced Technologies and Laboratories International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Planned […]

For the first time in 15 years, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is making shipments of transuranic waste to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, a lab spokesman said this week. Three shipments left Lawrence Livermore for WIPP during the week of Sept. 21, one week after a […]

The Department of Energy could release its request for proposals for infrastructure support services at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio by Thanksgiving. In a notice posted Sept. 25 on a federal procurement website, the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said to expect a solicitation within 15 to 60 days for replacement of the current five-year, […]

Federal agencies were still open for business Thursday morning, after President Trump signed a stopgap budget bill that freezes most federal budgets at 2020 levels through Dec. 11. With appropriations set to lapse at midnight, the Senate on Wednesday cast votes to pass the measure with less than a working day left before the literal […]

Incumbent contractor Navarro Research and Engineering will provide support services to the Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management through the first quarter of 2021 while a court fight continues over award of a new long-term agreement. In a notice posted Wednesday on a federal procurement website, the DOE said it will extend the expiration […]

There are 74 active cases of COVID-19 currently within the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s nuclear cleanup sites, an agency spokesperson said late Thursday. That is slightly up from the 70 active cases the prior week across the 16 former Cold War and Manhattan Project sites overseen by the office, but still less […]

The potential $21-billion Department of Energy solicitation for liquid waste management and related environmental work at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is on the street. In a notice posted Thursday on a procurement website, the DOE Office of Environmental Management issued the final request for proposals (RFP) for what it calls the Savannah […]

The former chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board used procedural tactics to block board approval of a COVID-19 response plan that complied with federal best practices, the inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. The independent federal nuclear health-and-safety watchdog drafted a COVID-19 response plan at the onset of the pandemic, but […]