Department of Energy

Two major engineering and infrastructure companies, one a central player in the Energy Department nuclear cleanup business and another having just exited it, report earnings this week for the first three months of 2020. AECOM, the former parent company of Energy Department contractor Amentum, has scheduled its earnings conference for noon Eastern time Tuesday. Jacobs […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is renewing a $14.4 million grant for New Mexico State University to continue environmental monitoring near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees WIPP, announced the five-year financial assistance Thursday to support the NMSU engineering college’s Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring & Research […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management intends to issue a sole-source business deal to a firm to provide employee training on end-state contracting. In a Monday procurement notice, the agency announced plans to hire Management Concepts Inc. (MCI) to provide the training as the nuclear cleanup office continues to overhaul its management of environmental […]

The Energy Department has exercised a one-year option to keep Spectra Tech on the job overseeing spent fuel facilities at the Idaho National Laboratory through March 2021. Procurement documents show the department picked up its last option in February for the current contrac. The Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based engineering and environmental services firm began work on […]

Mission Support Alliance is shopping around for a subcontractor to build a new water treatment facility at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Hanford support services contractor said in an April 25 procurement notice it is accepting expressions of interest from vendors to build a new 10,000-square-foot microfiltration membrane water treatment plant. […]

The primary obstacle to the Department of Energy’s plan for diluting and disposing of surplus plutonium deep underground in New Mexico is scaling up the technology and workforce to do the job, a National Academies panel said Thursday in a long-awaited final report. At the same time, the congressionally chartered group warned, DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear […]

While it has made progress, the Department of Energy still needs to more fully address priority recommendations to improve performance in its nuclear security and cleanup missions, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Wednesday. In an annual update, the congressional auditor said it has 20 priority recommendations across the Energy Department, including eight recommendations new […]

An Albuquerque advocacy organization is asking the New Mexico Court of Appeals to block last week’s temporary state approval for the U.S. Department of Energy to sink a new underground shaft at the Waste isolation Pilot Plant. The Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) filed its motion for a stay with the court on April […]

Vice presidents at Department of Energy contractor Bechtel are taking pay cuts of up to 25% over 90 days during the COVID-19 crisis The one-quarter reduction applies to senior vice presidents, while principal vice presidents at the Reston, Va.-based company are receiving a 10% reduction, management told employees on April 6. The measure is a […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday denied a protest of the Energy Department’s award of a multibillion-dollar contract for remediation of the Central Plateau at the Hanford Site in Washington state to a group led by Amentum. The Project W Restoration partnership, comprised of Bechtel National, Tetra Tech, and EnergySolutions, filed a protest Jan. […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Thursday confirmed two more cases of COVID-19, bringing its total to 13 of the 20 known instances of infection among personnel working at sites overseen by the agency’s Office of Environmental Management. A spokesperson for the DOE office at Savannah River declined to provide any […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily halted most physical work on major waste projects scheduled to come online this year at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory and Savannah River Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Reductions in on-site staffing triggered by DOE efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus have suspended virtually all physical […]

The American Nuclear Society has formally backed preliminary findings from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in support of licensing a facility in New Mexico for temporary storage of spent fuel from nuclear power plants. The March 10 draft environmental impact statement (EIS) from staff at the industry regulator “provides a thorough evaluation of the environmental impacts […]

Vice presidents at Department of Energy contractor Bechtel are taking pay cuts of up to 25% over 90 days during the COVID-19 crisis The one-quarter reduction applies to senior vice presidents, while principal vice presidents at the Reston, Va.-based company are receiving a 10% reduction, management told employees on April 6. The measure is a […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Tuesday confirmed its 11th cases of COVID-19. A spokesperson for the DOE office at Savannah River declined to provide any additional details on the individual. To date, nine of the 11 people who have tested positive at the DOE complex near the South Carolina-Georgia border […]

While it has made progress, the Department of Energy still needs to more fully address priority recommendations to improve performance in its nuclear security and cleanup missions, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Wednesday. In an annual update, the congressional auditor said it has 20 priority recommendations across the Energy Department, including eight recommendations new […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management intends to issue a sole-source business deal to a firm to provide employee training on end-state contracting. In a Monday procurement notice, the agency announced plans to hire Management Concepts Inc. (MCI) to provide the training as the nuclear cleanup office continues to overhaul its management of environmental […]

The Energy Department has exercised a one-year option to keep Spectra Tech on the job overseeing spent fuel facilities at the Idaho National Laboratory through March 2021. In February, DOE picked up its last option for the current contract, according to procurement documents. The Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based engineering and environmental services firm began work on […]

A New Mexico advocacy organization is asking the state Court of Appeals to block last week’s temporary state approval for the U.S. Department of Energy to sink a new underground shaft at the Waste isolation Pilot Plant. The Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) filed its motion with the court Friday. That same day, the […]

A contractor employee at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, who recently tested positive for COVID-19, left New Mexico on March 23. An article in the Monday Weapons Complex Morning Briefing misstated the date.

Mission Support Alliance is shopping around for a subcontractor to build a new water treatment facility at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Hanford support services contractor said in an April 25 procurement notice it is accepting expressions of interest from vendors to build a new 10,000-square-foot microfiltration membrane water treatment plant. […]

Reductions in on-site staffing at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic have temporarily halted virtually all physical work on the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, a state official said Monday. Progress on the IWTU is on hold “as much of the work requires materials/contractors from outside Idaho and some confined space […]

An employee of the technical services vendor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico has contracted COVID-19. This marks the facility’s first confirmed infection of novel coronavirus 2019. The employee of North Wind Portage tested positive Friday after working remotely since March 18, according to a news release from DOE’s […]

The Department of Energy’s top nuclear energy official on Monday expressed regret over the imminent closure of one reactor at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York state. “It pains me to see Indian Point Unit 2 prematurely shutting down this Thursday,” Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal wrote on Twitter. “The […]

Reduced staffing caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Department of Energy to suspend construction of the Saltstone Disposal Unit 7 (SDU 7) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said in a recent report. The April 3 staff report filed with DNFSB Technical Director Christopher Roscetti […]

Two more people at the Department of Energy’s Forrestal Building headquarters in Washington, D.C., have tested positive for COVID-19, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said Friday. One employee has not been in the buildng since March 13, the other since March 27, Brouillette said in the statement. Both have since recovered in self-quarantine, he added. That […]

Two Fluor vice presidents are leaving the company, and all executives are temporarily taking a 20% cut in their base pay, according to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the April 10 notice, Fluor announced the separation from employment of Executive Vice President for Systems and Supply Chain Ray Barnard and […]

The Ohio Department of Health said in federal court documents it cannot provide the cancer records sought by local residents suing current and former contractors at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Pike County. U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers, in the Southern District of Ohio, gave the plaintiffs until Friday to file a motion […]

The Energy Department has yet to execute an extension of up to two years for the Amentum-led joint venture responsible for remediation at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The agency in February announced its intention to award a sole-source deal to URS/CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) in the form of a one-year extension, plus options […]

The Department of Energy expects within 60 days to issue a final request for proposals for a small business to provide technical assistance to the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced its plans Thursday on a federal procurement website. Idaho-based North Wind Group is the incumbent, with a […]