Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

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 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) plans in September to release a report on the Energy Department’s payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) to communities surrounding its national laboratories and nuclear cleanup sites. The report will analyze how PILT payments are calculated across sites and how have they varied over time, according to the GAO. […]

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 […]

Former Kennewick, Wash., mayor and Hanford Site executive Steve Young died Thursday at the age of 69 from complications from cancer. Young was a four-term mayor of the city near Hanford. He was serving as a city councilman and had filed for re-election. He was also vice chairman of the Energy Communities Alliance, a Washington, […]

After 11 years with Westinghouse, José Emeterio Gutiérrez will resign as president and CEO effective July 31 and will be succeeded Aug. 19 by Patrick Fragman, group senior vice president at ABB Limited, an international technology company involved with electrification, industrial automation, and other fields. An executive committee of senior managers will run Westinghouse daily […]

Bechtel National last week and early this week conducted sweeping drug and alcohol testing of workers at the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) the company is building at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The testing targeted all of the approximately 2,000 workers who have unescorted access to the plant’s job site. Four other major Hanford […]

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would increase the fiscal 2020 funding for cleanup at the Hanford Site in Washington state by about $380 million from the Trump administration’s request. However, the funding is still about $37 million below current spending levels, according to initial figures, which do not include security […]

Face-to-face mediation is expected in June between public interest groups and the New Mexico Environment Department over changes to the way waste volume is calculated underground at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The New Mexico Court of Appeals often encourages mediation in cases involving state agencies in hopes parties can bridge their […]

The fiscal 2020 energy and water funding bill approved Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee would slash funding for a $50 million facility intended to reduce the cost and time of cleaning up nuclear waste at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The Energy Department requested all $50 million for the […]

The House of Representatives Appropriations Committee on Tuesday passed federal funding legislation that would prohibit the Trump administration from transferring the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the Department of Energy. Appropriators did not discuss the White House proposal before voting 31-21 to send the fiscal […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday ruled out bartering of excess government uranium to help fund remediation of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio in fiscal 2020. To make up for funds the government would have reaped through uranium barter,  the energy and water development bill for the next budget year would provide Portsmouth […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday affirmed a plan to keep Energy Department Office of Environmental Management funding at about $7.2 billion for fiscal 2020. The funding is included in the energy and water development appropriations legislation for the budget year starting Oct. 1, which the committee reported to the full House. The measure would […]

Officials in southern Ohio met Thursday to narrow the list of potential third-party contractors to sample for potential radioactive contamination at a middle school near the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site. The Pike County General Health District said Tuesday it is working with DOE, along with local and state agencies, to establish a procedure outlining “when […]

Anne Marie White is stepping down as head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, multiple industry sources said Thursday afternoon. They linked her departure to friction with her immediate superior, Undersecretary of Energy for Science Paul Dabbar, exacerbated by concerns about radioactive contamination near a DOE facility in Ohio. White became assistant […]

The House Appropriations Committee wants the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study what impact an Energy Department order on oversight by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has on public and worker safety at nuclear weapons sites. The panel is concerned that DOE Order 140.1, enacted in May 2018, effectively restricts the DNFSB’s ability […]

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wants the Department to Energy to ensure additional sampling for potential contaminants is done in time for Pike County officials to decide whether to reopen a middle school near the Portsmouth Site after summer vacation. The governor wants to resolve the question of any potential health threats at Zahn’s Corner Middle […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management could issue a half-dozen major contract nuclear cleanup awards, collectively worth up to $35 billion, by the end of 2019. The office’s ’s latest procurement schedule, dated May 10, outlines an ambitious schedule of contract deals this year. Environmental Management updates its timelines every few months and the […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management has delayed completion of the draft record of decision on a proposed new landfill facility for the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee until August. Previously, the draft ROD was expected May 7. State and federal regulators approved a three-month extension for submitting the document for the proposed Environmental […]

A Washington state information-technology and staff augmentation company faces a second civil lawsuit over claims it accepted pay for work at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site but failed to pay the subcontractor hired to provide the services. E2 Consulting Engineers of California filed the lawsuit Monday in Benton County, Wash., Superior Court against i-3 […]

The Energy Department contractor for the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state won 75% of its available fee, $345,810 of a potential $461,080, in its latest six-month performance scorecard. Contractor CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) recorded no significant achievements or deficiencies during the period from Aug. 29, 2018, through Feb. 28 of […]

A trace of a radiological contaminant was discovered on a plutonium shipping container as it was returned last month to the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. There were no leaks, spills, or exposures to workers or the environment, according to an April 25 DOE occurrence report. The 5-gallon shipping container held less than 40 milliliters of a […]

The Department of Energy was criticized Wednesday for failing to provide important information for discussion at a meeting on the fiscal 2021 budget for environmental remediation at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Participants at the meeting in the nearby city of Richland said they did not receive specific information on work that will be […]

About $8.5 million in contractor costs approved by the company that manages the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site were initially deemed improper in a recent Department of Energy audit. But in a manager response attached to the audit by the Department of Energy inspector general, the federal agency and the contractor, Savannah River Nuclear […]

The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled Tuesday to review an energy and water bill that would reverse the Trump administration’s plan to cut $700 million in funding for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office. The White House in March asked for just under $6.5 billion for the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) for […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has postponed its scheduled May 22 public hearing in Washington, D.C., on past radioactive waste accidents at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory and its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. In a notice on its website, the DNFSB said the half-day public hearing is being rescheduled […]

By John Stang Perma-Fix Environmental Services has borrowed $2.5 million from one of its shareholders to be used for general working capital. The Atlanta-based nuclear services provider recorded the April 1 transaction in a May 9 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The unsecured loan is from shareholder Robert Ferguson, who is […]

The Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) should complete its transuranic waste processing mission this summer, although some work remains beyond fiscal 2019. Roughly 6,500 cubic meters of material, or about 10% of the original total, still requires certification and transport to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in […]