Department of Energy

The U.S. Civilian Board of Contract Appeals has ruled the Department of Energy was wrong to disallow $16.6 million in costs incurred over several years by parent companies of Mission Support Alliance. In a ruling dated Dec. 17, the appeals board held the agreement between DOE and the Leidos-led infrastructure services contractor team at the […]

The Department of Energy and Bechtel announced Wednesday in an online ceremony that construction of facilities needed to start processing low-activity tank waste are complete at the $17-billion vitrification plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The direct-feed low-activity waste (DFLAW) facilities at the Waste Treatment Plant include a new Analytical Laboratory, the new […]

As of close of business Wednesday, nuclear cleanup sites managed by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management had 381 active cases of COVID-19 scattered across its workforce, a spokesperson for the office said this week. The figure, while still high, is down 50 from the 431 active cases cited on Dec.31. As for […]

Just before Christmas, and months after two losing teams protested the award, the Department of Energy canned a $13-billion liquid-waste cleanup contract awarded in May to a BWX Technologies-led team. It is the second time in two years that a BWXT-led team has seen DOE cancel a major procurement which it had originally won. In […]

As part of the omnibus spending package signed Dec. 27 by President Donald Trump, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will receive almost $7.6 billion for fiscal 2021, which is $131 million above its funding level for the 2020 budget year that ended Sept. 30, 2020. It is also about 22% more than […]

In a long-awaited report published this week, the Department of Energy estimated it could save up to $230 billion by lowering the classification level of certain radioactive waste from nuclear-weapons production — and while some neighbors of nuclear-cleanup sites welcomed the idea, it remained far from certain that Congress will give the agency clear legal […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is reviewing a request by Waste Control Specialists to continue holding drums of potentially-combustible transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory at its Andrews County, Texas facility into December 2022. About 110 containers of the problem waste from the Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico have basically been […]

The Department of Energy and Bechtel announced Wednesday in an online ceremony that construction of facilities needed to start processing low-activity tank waste are complete at the $17-billion vitrification plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The direct-feed low-activity waste (DFLAW) facilities at the Waste Treatment Plant include a new Analytical Laboratory, the new […]

The U.S. Civilian Board of Contract Appeals has ruled the Department of Energy was wrong to disallow $16.6 million in costs incurred over several years by parent companies of Mission Support Alliance. In a ruling dated Dec. 17, the appeals board held the agreement between DOE and the Leidos-led infrastructure services contractor team at the […]

The Low Activity Waste Facility at the Hanford Site in Washington State is now scheduled to begin solidifying liquid waste not sooner than 2024, instead of 2023, because of COVID-19, under a recent agreement between the Department of Energy and Washington state. In December, Judge Rosanna Peterson of the Eastern District of Washington approved a […]

Lowering the hazard classification of some defense-nuclear waste could save the Department of Energy more than $200 billion in disposal costs, the agency told Congress in a report three years in the making. Most of the potential savings, between roughly $70 billion and $200 billion, would come from reclassifying low-activity waste at the Hanford West […]

Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation, the liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, took home almost $64 million or 98% of its total potential fee for work done over an 18-month period ending Sept. 30, 2020. The contractor was rated “very good” on its subjective fee as determined by […]

As of this morning, the Government Accountability Office website lists no bid protests filed yet for the Department of Energy’s Dec. 22 award of a potential 10-year, $3.8 billion Savannah River National Laboratory contract to a Battelle-owned team. Accounting for holidays and weekends, this coming Friday will mark 10 days since DOE announced the award. […]

As of early Dec. 30, no companies have filed challenges with the Government Accountability Office to contest the Dec. 10 award of the new $160-million Paducah Infrastructure Support Services Contract to Kentucky-based Swift & Staley. The Department of Energy received four bids for the contract, an agency spokesperson said Dec. 17. The spokesperson did not […]

Like other federal agencies, the Department of Energy may continue to reimburse contractors for paid leave related to COVID-19 through March 31, under the combination omnibus budget bill and coronavirus relief package signed into law this week. The paid-leave reimbursement became law this summer in section 3610 of the CARES act, an early COVID-19 stimulus […]

The Department of Energy liked what it saw in Washington River Protection Solutions’ tank waste management at the Hanford Site in Washington state during fiscal 2020. The DOE awarded the Amentum-Atkins partnership about $42.58 million or 95% out of a potential $45 million in fees for overseeing Hanford’s 56 million gallons of highly radioactive and […]

The nuclear cleanup properties overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management had 431 active cases of COVID-19 as of the close of business Wednesday. The figure, shared in a Thursday email by an Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson, is a jump from the 366 active cases reported by the office one week before […]

Just before Christmas, and months after two losing teams protested the award, the Department of Energy canned a $13-billion liquid-waste cleanup contract awarded in May to a BWX Technologies-led team. In a Dec. 23 memo to Hanford employees, DOE said it scrapped the Tank Closure Contract because it wants to combine that work — emptying […]

The Government Accountability Office says Hanford Tank Closure Co., made up of Atkins, Amentum and Westinghouse Government Services, is not entitled reimbursement of its legal costs for protesting a $13-billion tank closure contract issued in May by the Department of Energy. In a November decision published this month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the […]

Navarro-led Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration on Monday received notice from the Department of Energy to begin taking over the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Located in the 200-West Area of the former plutonium complex, the primary purpose of the 70,000 square foot lab is to provide analytical support for the […]

The Department of Energy said Monday that Centerra, the paramilitary security contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, is taking home roughly 98% of its potential $6.73 million in fee for the 12 months ended Oct. 7. Centerra-Savannah River Site will pocket $6.58 million for providing an armed and uniformed security force for […]

The Department of Energy reiterated in Dec. 23 online comments that questions on the long-term contract, potentially worth up to $8.3-billion, at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, are due at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time today, Monday Dec. 28. In answer to a question submitted by a potential bidder, the DOE stressed any questions should […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said Dec. 21 that it has transferred the Separations Process Research Unit in New York from the nuclear cleanup office to the DOE Office of Naval Reactors as of Dec. 16. The DOE announced the transfer of the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) areas from the Office […]

UCOR, the Amentum-Jacobs team in charge of remediation at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, earned 98% of its potential fee, almost $28 million, for its work for the final six months of fiscal 2020. The joint venture earned 100% of its $20.8 million in objective fee for meeting deadlines and accomplishing […]

The COVID-19 pandemic did not take a holiday during Christmas week, with new infections reported at Department of Energy nuclear cleanup operations such as the Hanford Site in Washington state and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Supervisors at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) were notified of nine positive COVID-19 cases between […]

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) to be Secretary of Energy, media reported this week. Granholm, who is deeply familiar with U.S. auto-making, will be a key ambassador to industry when Biden enlists the DOE’s help bolstering his agenda to fight climate change, outlets reported, citing people familiar with the […]

Cold War and Manhattan Project locations being cleaned up by the Department of Energy could be viable candidates for new nuclear power plants, a federal official said during an online presentation Wednesday. About a dozen of the 16 nuclear cleanup properties run by the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) boast “unique characteristics” potentially attractive […]

A group led by Navarro Research and Engineering is expected to start its transition Jan. 4 as the new contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, a source said this week. Hanford’s DOE site manager, Brian Vance, said last week during an appearance before the Hanford Advisory Board to expect the […]

The Department of Energy’s manager for the Hanford Site in Washington state expects the stabilization of three crumbling underground waste structures near the Plutonium Finishing Plant to be shored up by the end of January. “We expect to complete that project by the end of January,” Hanford’s site manager Brian Vance told a meeting of […]

While the coronavirus pandemic affected nuclear cleanup at the Department of Energy in ways great and small, it did not slow down the acquisition process in 2020, when the Environmental Management Office awarded about $31 billion worth of new cleanup contracts. That includes $17 billion of contracts during the 2020 calendar year and some $14 […]