Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

The U.S. Energy Department said Wednesday it will begin the bidding process for the new Savannah River Site management and operations (M&O) contract by May 1. In an online announcement, DOE’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center said that, within 30 to 60 days, it would issue a draft request for proposals (RFP) to kick off the […]

A federal judge has rescheduled the bench trial in the Hanford Site chemical vapors safety lawsuit for a ninth time. Judge Thomas Rice, of U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, most recently pushed back the trial date from Nov. 26, 2018, to Feb. 5, 2019. Deadlines in the case also have been extended by about […]

None of the 21 drone sightings in 2016 at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina resulted in any significant findings, according to Department of Energy documents recently released via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In some cases, what employees saw might not have even been a drone, the records indicate. In November 2016, […]

Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries said Wednesday that Michael Smith will become president of subsidiary Stoller Newport News Nuclear (SN3) effective immediately. Smith has been Huntington Ingalls’ executive vice president for strategy and development. In his new post, Smith will report to Michael Lempke, president of Huntington Ingalls’ nuclear and environmental group. As president of SN3, […]

The White House requested roughly $31 million for the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in 2019, roughly even with the appropriation that now funds the independent health-and-safety watchdog of the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapon sites. The requested budget of $30.6 million is less than one percent lower than the $30.9 million the Defense Nuclear […]

The watchdog organization Hanford Challenge said this week it found traces of radioactive americium in the engine filters of two employee vehicles that had been parked at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant. The vehicles had previously been checked at Hanford and declared clean in the wake of a radioactive contamination spread from the plant […]

The U.S. Department of Energy and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) are accepting public comments through April 23 on environmental implications of the next phase of cleanup planned for the West Valley Demonstration Project (NVDP) in Ashford, N.Y. The state and federal agencies issued a notice of intent Wednesday in […]

Fluor is looking for additional business opportunities within the Energy Department’s Cold War cleanup complex, Chairman and CEO David Seaton said Tuesday. “We are looking at the Hanford liquid waste contract that is coming up for rebid this year,” Seaton said during a regular quarterly earnings conference call with Wall Street analysts. He did not […]

SNC-Lavalin President and CEO Neil Bruce on Thursday praised the early benefits of his company’s acquisition of British engineering rival Atkins, which he called “the largest and most transformative in our history.” The Montreal-based infrastructure and engineering company in July 2017 completed its $3.6 billion (CAN) deal for Atkins, a significant player in cleanup of […]

The chief executive at French waste and water management company Veolia on Thursday hinted at additional acquisitions in the corporate segment that encompasses its nuclear services business line. “[A]s in 2017, growth in 2018 will be complemented by some targeted acquisitions, for example, in the following areas: plastics recycling, energy efficiency, or hazardous waste treatment,” […]

The U.S. Energy Department failed to “reasonably evaluate the viability” of the technical approach put forth by the winning bidder for a $4.7 billion contract for liquid waste services at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to a redacted version of the Government Accountability Office ruling on protests against the procurement award. The […]

The Department of Energy announced Monday that it has selected a new Savannah River Site manager to replace Jack Craig, is retiring after three years in the role and 32 years of federal service. Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Michael Budney will take over at the 310-square-mile site near Aiken, S.C. While serving for nearly three […]

The U.S. Energy Department has agreed to a $24 million legal settlement to resolve breach of contract litigation brought by Centrus Energy in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The settlement agreement was reached Jan. 11, and Centrus reported the development on Jan. 17 in an 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. […]

Leidos has acquired a larger share of Hanford Site contractor Mission Support Alliance to eliminate a conflict of interest for Jacobs Engineering Group. Leidos now owns 88 percent of the support services provider, with Centerra owning the remainder. When Jacobs Engineering Group completed its acquisition of CH2M in December, Jacobs became the partial owner of […]

The Trump administration’s nominee for assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, Anne Marie White, is taking private one-on-one meetings with senators prior to an expected hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, an industry source said Thursday. “She started her Senate rounds this week,” said the source, who said he did not know how […]

Environmental Management (EM) missions at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina are in line to receive $287 million more in the next federal budget than they received in fiscal 2017, with a strong emphasis on liquid waste cleanup. President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal, released Monday, would provide $1.66 billion […]

The Trump administration is again proposing to increase the budget for the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office, to $6.6 billion for fiscal 2019. That would be $182 million above the fiscal 2017 enacted level and $100 million above the amount proposed for the current budget year for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). Two industry […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico would get a funding spike to $403 million in the Trump administration fiscal 2019 budget request, which envisions the underground disposal site taking 10 shipments weekly. The budget proposal for the Carlsbad Field Office would be $79 million over the 2017 enacted level of spending […]

President Donald Trump’s defense-heavy budget request would have mixed effects at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. Trump has made no secret of his desire to increase military-related spending. Toward that, the White House proposal for fiscal 2019 would provide $15.1 million for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy’s stockpile steward, […]

South Carolina stakeholders for the Savannah River Site denounced Monday a potential plan to process 34 metric tons of plutonium and ship it to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., for permanent storage. That “dilute and dispose” option is the Department of Energy’s preferred approach for eliminating the plutonium, rather than continuing forward with construction and […]

The U.S. Department of Energy has as of Tuesday incurred $3.2 million in fines from the state of Idaho for failure to successfully start operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory. The federal agency has paid part of that amount, primarily through environmental cleanup projects in the state, but the […]

It might take until March for the U.S. Government Accountability Office to explain its recent rulings in two protests against a $4.7 billion liquid waste management contract at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The agency on Feb. 8 upheld one protest and rejected another, but has not released the decisions. […]

The Energy Department expects in April to file a permit application for storage of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste at its Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup in upstate New York. A total of 22 containers are expected to hold waste generated by ongoing environmental remediation at the site, according to a recent DOE notice. […]

Members of the Pacific Northwest congressional delegation are prepared to fight a $230 million budget cut for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. If approved by Congress, funding for cleanup of the former plutonium production complex would drop to roughly $2.185 billion in the DOE fiscal 2019 budget proposal issued Monday. The […]

The number of workers with positive bioassay results has increased to seven since the spread of radioactive contamination was discovered in mid-December at the Hanford Site Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition zone. The seven workers are in addition to 31 workers discovered to have ingested or inhaled radioactive particles after a June spread of contamination during […]

A pair of public meetings have been scheduled in March on proposed changes in the New Mexico hazardous waste facility permit for the U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The meetings, scheduled in Carlsbad and Santa Fe, will focus on clarifying transuranic “Mixed Waste Disposal Volume Reporting,” according to a recent notice posted online […]

Incumbent Navarro Research and Engineering was among a large crowd of firms registered with the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management for presolicitation meetings last month on the Nevada Environmental Services Program at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). The registration document posted on the Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center website included a four-page […]