Department of Energy

The New Mexico Environment Department is still waiting on the Department of Energy to provide more details on the planned remediation of contamination discovered earlier this year on a public road outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The preliminary screening plan that will determine if the hazardous constituents at the 28-acre DP Road site are […]

Concerns about the surging COVID-19 pandemic in New Mexico led the Department of Energy to reduce on-site staffing and slow certain operations at both the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, according to recent documents published by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  At Los Alamos, operations are affected for both […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management on Friday issued its final request for proposals for the Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup Contract in Tennessee. The potential $8.3 billion indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract has an ordering period of 10 years and the completion of the task orders are expected within 15 year, DOE said in a Friday […]

Weapons Complex Monitor will not publish next week in observance of the Christmas holiday, nor the week after, in observance of New Year’s Day. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Jan. 8. Happy 2021!

The Department of Energy extended the bid deadline for a new Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contract by one week, to Dec. 23. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the extra time in a package of questions and answers published Dec. 11 on a procurement website. Previously, bids were due Dec. 14. In a final Q&A […]

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 […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology will hold an online public hearing Jan. 21 on proposed modifications to certain facilities at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. The DOE and contractor Washington River Protection Solutions seek a class 2 modification to allow expansion of loading areas at the Liquid Effluent Retention Facility and the 200 […]

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 Tuesday. Hanford’s DOE site manager, Brian Vance, said last week during an appearance before the Hanford Advisory Board to expect the new […]

WIPP Takes in 15 Shipments During November The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 15 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during November. There were five from the Idaho National Laboratory, six from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, three from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and one from the […]

The draft Record of Decision on a proposed 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is being delayed once again, with the new publication target being next July. The document was previously scheduled for publication this week by the DOE Office of Environmental Management at Oak Ridge. But spokespeople […]

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) to be Secretary of Energy, media reported late Tuesday. 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 […]

An article in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“Meeting on LANL Stormwater Scheduled for This Week,” Dec. 15, 2020] should have identified Huntington Ingalls Industries as the lead partner in Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B). An article in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“Law Pausing Ohio Nuclear Plant Subsidies To Be Heard Tuesday,” Dec. 14, […]

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 […]

The Department of Energy and its legacy cleanup contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory will discuss 2021 plans for improved stormwater runoff around the lab during a public meeting Wednesday evening. It is the second of two required semiannual meetings by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management at the federal complex and remediation contractor, Newport […]

Fourteen new cases of the coronavirus were confirmed at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state over the weekend, putting the site’s cumulative case count at more than 500 since the pandemic hit the U.S. in January. Eight workers at the former plutonium production facility informed management Friday they had tested positive for […]

The New Mexico Environment Department is still waiting on the Department of Energy to provide more details on the planned remediation of contamination discovered earlier this year on a public road outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The preliminary screening plan that will determine if the hazardous constituents at the 28-acre DP Road site are […]

The Department of Energy extended the bid deadline for a new Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contract by one week, to Dec. 23. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the extra time in a package of questions and answers on the business published Friday on a procurement website. Previously, bids were due today. The DOE acknowledged […]

The Department of Energy has picked up a six-month option keeping North Wind Portage on the job as the technical assistance contractor at the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico until June 2021. The basic contract and associated task orders were extended six months from Dec. 4, last Friday, to June 3, 2021, a spokesperson […]

Among the 106 Republican members of the House of Representatives filing an amicus brief with a Texas lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election — which President Donald Trump has claimed without evidence was compromised by widespread fraud — were five lawmakers whose districts include Department of Energy nuclear weapon sites. “This brief […]

Seventy-four employees have agreed to take a voluntary buyout from the decommissioning and demolition contractor at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth announced the results of its Self-Select Voluntary Separation Program in a Wednesday email statement. The voluntary buyout package includes a severance based on years of service and the applicable […]

After reviewing its options, cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho has decided to pay the $580,700 civil penalty issued by the Department of Energy over an April 2018 explosion at the Idaho National Laboratory where four 55-gallon drums overheated and blew off their lids spewing radioactive sludge. “Fluor Idaho chose not to contest the findings” in the […]

The Department of Energy said Thursday that Paducah, Ky.-based incumbent Swift & Staley has won the new $160-million Paducah Infrastructure Support Services Contract. The contract runs about five years with a 60-day transition period, a 34-month base period and 24-month option period, DOE said in the press release announcing the deal. The transition period presumably […]

As of this week, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has seen 2,009 members of its workforce contract COVID-19 so far in 2020. The current number of federal and contractor workers infected with the coronavirus is 477, a spokesperson for Environmental Management (EM) said Thursday. At the Hanford Site in Washington state, largest […]

Many members of the Hanford Advisory Board seemed taken aback Thursday by a Department of Energy proposal to add six more slots to the 32-member panel charged with drafting policy recommendations for cleanup of the former plutonium production facility in Washington state. About a dozen Hanford Advisory Board members, who spoke during an online meeting, […]

Fluor, Irving, Texas, reported a dip in total revenue for the 2020 third quarter, even as its government sector enjoyed higher profits in the three months ended Sept. 30. Fluor’s third-quarter revenue was $3.8 billion, down from $4.6 billion during the same quarter in 2019, according to the release. Net earnings from continuing operations attributable […]

The Department of Energy and other federal agencies could operate under their 2021 budgets for at least another week beyond Friday, after the Senate passed a short-term continuing resolution by voice vote Friday afternoon. The Hill reported the vote to avert a government shutdown and keep agencies operating until Dec. 18. The House of Representatives approved […]

Seventy-four employees have agreed to take a voluntary buyout from the decommissioning and demolition contractor at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth announced the results of its Self-Select Voluntary Separation Program in a Wednesday email statement. The voluntary buyout package includes a severance based on years of service and the applicable […]

The Department of Energy’s manager for the Hanford Site declined Wednesday to say how many employees have tested positive for the coronavirus so far this year at the former plutonium production complex in Washington state. “I report those numbers through headquarters now, and there is a more formal reporting process at the headquarters level,” in […]

Fluor, Irving, Texas, reported a dip in total revenue for the 2020 third quarter, even as its government sector enjoyed higher profits in the three months ended Sept. 30. Perhaps most significantly about the earnings press release issued Thursday morning is that it marks a sort of return to normalcy for the company, which has […]