Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

Rather than reducing schedule delays and expense overruns, the Energy Department’s use of a cost cap at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup project in upstate New York might have had the opposite effect, DOE’s Office of Inspector General said in an audit released Wednesday. The Energy Department in February 2011 instituted what was […]

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved the Chapter 11 reorganization plan for Westinghouse Electric, which said the authorization paves the way for its sale to a Canadian asset management company. The reorganization plan was overwhelmingly supported by Westinghouse’s creditors, the company said in a Tuesday news release. Brookfield […]

A U.S. Energy Department official last week defended plans for an on-site waste disposal cell at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Site in Ohio The disposal cell, intended to hold 2 million cubic yards of waste resulting from decontamination and decommissioning of buildings at Portsmouth, benefits the environment, reduces the amount of land in need […]

The Savannah River Site will receive $637.1 million for liquid waste treatment and cleanup in the current fiscal year – the largest chunk of the $1.31 billion designated for the Department of Energy facility in South Carolina. The amount for liquid waste operations included in the fiscal 2018 omnibus signed last week is $37 million […]

Having already granted one contract extension, the U.S. Energy Department proposes to keep incumbent Savannah River Remediation (SRR) in charge of liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina into 2019. In a March 21 notice on a federal contracts website, DOE announced plans to retain SRR for up to another 10 […]

The Energy Department has proposed extending the Washington River Protection Solutions tank waste management contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state for up to one year. In a notice filed Thursday on a federal business opportunities website, DOE and its Office of River Protection at Hanford announced a proposed contract extension potentially from Oct. […]

Anne Marie White was sworn in Thursday as assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. She went to work Friday as head of the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, an informed source said Friday. “It’s an honor to serve as Assistant Secretary of Energy for EM,” White said in a Friday press release from […]

The U.S. Energy Department is prioritizing installing a new permanent ventilation system and replacing aging infrastructure at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico, according to the newly released fiscal 2019 budget justification document for the Office of Environmental Management. The $403 million WIPP budget request for the budget year starting Oct. 1 […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s internal watchdog has initiated a formal investigation into the spread of radioactive contamination at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant. The DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments’ (EA) Office of Enforcement notified the contractor demolishing the plant, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., of the probe in a letter sent March 21 and […]

The Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal 2019 justifies spending cuts for cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state by focusing on some of the work that will soon be completed. The proposed budget would trim funding for DOE’s Richland Operations Office at Hanford to $747 million, down by $169 million from the enacted […]

It could take some time for the Energy Department to decide how to handle 113 drums of inappropriately remediated nitrate salts stored at a privately operated disposal site in Texas, a senior DOE official said last week. The waste originated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which as of this month has […]

The Department of Energy awarded Bechtel National Inc. just 48 percent of the performance evaluation award fee available for calendar year 2017 for its work on the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, saying it had concerns about the company’s ability to meet contract milestones. Bechtel earned about $3.81 million of […]

Friday marked the official start of the 30-day window during which the Department of Energy has said it will release a draft solicitation for the Savannah River Site management and operations contract. The window is open through April 29, a Sunday, according to the presolicitation synopsis the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management posted online […]

PHOENIX, Ariz. — In the aftermath of a successful bid protest, the Energy Department expects to “re-award” a 10-year liquid waste contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina in late summer or early fall, a DOE procurement official said Wednesday. Norbert Doyle, DOE’s acting deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and project management, offered […]

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Tuesday he plans to look into the transfer of the Energy Department project manager for the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP), at the Hanford Site in Washington state, shortly after he raised concerns about missing documentation on steel being used at the facility. During a hearing on Capitol Hill, Wyden suggested […]

The fiscal 2018 omnibus budget bill signed by President Donald Trump on Friday would provide $7.1 billion for Department of Energy’s environmental management activities, $706 million above the $6.4 billion fiscal 2017 enacted level. That amounts to roughly an 11-percent increase on a year-over-year basis. Congress by early Friday approved the $1.3 trillion budget that […]

SNC-Lavalin Group subsidiary Atkins has hired longtime Energy Department procurement chief Ralph Holland as vice president for commercial development in Atkins Nuclear Secured Holdings Corp. Holland will support Atkins senior leaders in areas including strategy, contract management, and contract assurance. The announcement did not specify if he is replacing another manager or filling a newly […]

The fiscal 2018 omnibus spending legislation approved by Congress by Friday morning includes $2.42 billion for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, not including security spending. The bill provides $203 million more for the Washington state cleanup site than requested by the Donald Trump administration for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1., and would […]

The U.S. Department of Energy partially or fully approved 15 of the 20 recommendations submitted by the Savannah River Site’s Citizens Advisory Board (CAB), from January 2016 through December 2017. Of the five other recommendations, three are still pending and the other two were denied in full. The high approval rating signals to board members […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management on Thursday issued its request for proposals for the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and scheduled a pre-proposal site tour for April 10. The announcement had been expected after DOE issued the draft RFP in November and said last month it was preparing to […]

PHOENIX, Ariz. — During 2017, its first year of operation following a nearly three-year shutdown, the Energy Department Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico resumed disposing of transuranic waste, tightened its vetting of incoming shipments, and resumed salt mining, officials said this week. The nation’s only underground repository for TRU waste, which is overseen […]

The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed Anne Marie White to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, after Energy Secretary Rick Perry agreed to suspend the agency’s uranium barter program. The commitment by Perry, offered publicly during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, evidently helped persuade Sen. John Barrasso […]

Another new leader has been named for the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) project as recovery continues from a spread of radioactive contamination from demolition in December. John Lehew, president of Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. (CHPRC) from 2008 to 2012, has been named the new demolition manager. Workers at the […]

The Department of Energy has named a new federal project director and assistant manager for the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant as the $17 billion project moves into a new phase. Tom Fletcher, now deputy manager of DOE’s Hanford Richland Operations Office, will move to the DOE Hanford Office of River Protection to take the […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry ducked and dodged in the first congressional hearing of the year about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget, evading questions from the dais about when the agency would provide a congressionally mandated cost estimate that could allow it to cancel a massive plutonium disposal plant under construction at the Savannah […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday expressed his opposition to continuing sales of excess government uranium to help finance cleanup of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, an issue that is holding up confirmation of Anne Marie White to head the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The topic came up in the […]

The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into vitrified glass by the end of 2021, in advance of a legal deadline, the highest-ranking official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant energy secretary for environmental management, […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board is preparing to issue a recommendation on the future of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), sources said this week. The Energy Department advisory board will hear public input on potential future uses for the AMWTP during a conference call on March 28. The […]