Department of Energy

Lynchburg, Va. -based BWX Technologies has promoted Richard Loving to a newly created post of senior vice president and chief administrative officer (CAO). Loving has been senior vice president for human resources at BWXT since mid-2016. He has about 40 years of management experience in manufacturing, energy, and government operations, according to a press release. […]

A Bechtel-led joint venture filed a protest Tuesday with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) over the December award of a potential 10-year, $10-billion cleanup contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Project W Restoration partnership is headed by Bechtel National, and the other members are Tetra Tech and EnergySolutions, an industry source […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) hopes to meet soon with new U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette to discuss public health and safety issues at nuclear sites overseen by his agency. In a Jan. 16 letter, DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton congratulated Brouillette on his December confirmation as energy secretary and said the board would […]

A Bechtel-led joint venture filed a protest Tuesday with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) over the December award of a potential 10-year, $10-billion cleanup contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Project W Restoration partnership is led by Bechtel National, and the other members of the venture are Tetra Tech and EnergySolutions, […]

Passage of a law to reauthorize the U.S. Energy Department’s cleanup of the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state drew kudos Wednesday from participants at a local meeting. The measure, which passed the U.S. Senate on Dec. 2 and was subsequently signed into law by President Donald Trump on Dec. 20, would reauthorize […]

Massachusetts-based UniTech Services Group has made Michael Bovino its new vice president, effective Jan. 1. Bovino brings 35 years of management and contamination control experience to the post at the nuclear services company. The executive is a 29-year veteran of UniTech and its parent, UniFirst Corp., most recently serving as division general manager responsible for […]

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control is “making every effort” to publish the final versions of two long-awaited environmental reports for cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in this summer, a spokesman said this month. The state agency oversees remediation of the 2,800-acre site in Ventura County, about 30 miles northwest of downtown […]

A former employee of the liquid waste contractor for the U.S. Energy Department’s Savannah River Site has been awarded $240,107 in front pay she would have earned if the company had not unfairly denied her employment after she was initially laid off. In addition, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs ruled on Jan. 17 that […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s request for proposals (RFP) for the Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning, and Removal contract has seemingly sparked significant interest from the contractor community. Vendors submitted 152 questions in response to the agency procurement for the potential 10-year, $3 billion award. The DOE Office of Environmental Management in December released the final request for […]

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Leveraging resources from U.S. Department of Energy contractors and research universities will be a key part of the inaugural stand-alone management and operations contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), DOE Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said Thursday. The Energy Department is planning for a contract that would separate the […]

The Louisiana branch of power company Entergy last week filed another lawsuit seeking to recoup ongoing expenses for management of spent reactor fuel that the federal government is legally obligated to remove from the River Bend Station nuclear power plant. This is the third such lawsuit filed by Entergy Louisiana and its predecessor, Entergy Gulf […]

Jackie Quintyne, a Chicago native with 19 years of conference planning experience, has been named conference manager for the Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix. The annual WM Symposia in March is considered the largest international conference for the management of radioactive material and related topics. It provides a forum for discussing cost-effective and environmentally responsible […]

The new technical support services contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) has received its formal notice to proceed with the transition from its predecessors. The formal notice to proceed was issued to Pro2Serve subsidiary Enterprise Technical Assistance Services (E-TAS) on Jan. 6, a DOE spokesperson said in a Jan. 10 […]

The U.S. Energy Depart expects within 15 to 60 days to issue a solicitation for a new Paducah Infrastructure Support Services contract to replace the deal now held by Swift & Staley. The timeline set in the Jan. 10 notice would mean the request for proposals should be out by early March. The procurement will […]

The U.S. Energy Department Office of Inspector General (IG) is urging management at the Hanford Site in Washington state to provide more clarity and standardization in its recordkeeping for employee radiation dose. Greater use of standard forms and clearer lines of authority would better ensure that accurate employee histories of radiation dosage are kept, according […]

Constellis, the Reston, Va.-based parent of U.S. Energy Department contractor Centerra Group, has reached a “forbearance agreement” with certain creditors in order to get some leeway on loan repayment while it works to shore up its balance sheet. “Constellis recently closed on a $110 million delayed-draw credit facility provided by a subset of its existing […]

The U.S. National Labor Relations Board ruled Jan. 9 that a labor union representing security guards at the Waste Treatment Plant under construction at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site is not entitled to see the contract under which they are employed. The NLRB ruling finds that Waste Treatment Security Guards Union 161 holds no legal […]

An entity called Hanford Integrated Infrastructure Services Contractor filed a bid protest Monday with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) against the Department of Energy’s award last month of a $4 billion contract for support services at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Energy Department on Dec. 5 issued the potential 10-year contract to […]

The U.S. Justice Department’s civil fraud case against an Energy Department contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state is going forward, but a federal judge Monday dismissed “kickback” allegations against a former Mission Support Alliance president. Federal attorneys last February brought the case against defendants Mission Support Alliance (MSA), Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette has started off the new year by giving more authority to DOE Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes, effectively making him acting second in command at the agency until a deputy is in place. Brouillette said in a Jan. 10 email to Energy Department staff that to “ensure continued operational effectiveness,” […]

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Leveraging resources from U.S. Department of Energy contractors and research universities will be a key part of the inaugural stand-alone management and operations contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), DOE Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said Thursday. The Energy Department is planning for a contract that would separate the […]

An employee of the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington state is giving up her federal job after admitting to conducting an unauthorized tour for a political candidate. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) said in a Thursday press release the DOE staffer admitted violating the Hatch Act and relinquished her post Jan. 4 […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico received 292 shipments of transuranic waste during 2019, dipping from 311 the year before, according to the latest figures on the site’s publicly available website. The last shipment recorded on the website was Dec.7, although the database typically runs a couple weeks behind […]

In a New Year’s boon for Belgium’s Institute for Radioelements, the U.S. Department of Energy has postponed by two years a ban on exporting U.S.-origin, weapon-usable uranium for the production of medical isotopes. “[C]urrent global supplies of Mo-99 [Molybdenum 99] produced without the use of HEU [highly enriched uranium] are not sufficient to meet U.S. […]

The Trump administration is less than a month away from releasing its latest annual budget request, but so far no one is saying officially whether it will feature another attempt to revive the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The White House’s fiscal 2021 spending proposal is due on Feb. 10, a senior administration official confirmed […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled the first in a planned series of workshops for next week to consider a set of recommendations from the nuclear industry to increase efficiency in licensing of dry storage systems for radioactive spent fuel at power plants. The meeting is set for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Fernald Preserve in Ohio, a former Superfund site, has been honored for reuse by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “The Fernald site has come full circle with restoration, creating one of the largest man-made wetlands in Ohio,” said DOE’s Office of Legacy Management Deputy Manager Peter O’Konski, during a November […]

Comments on the U.S. Energy Department’s request for information (RFI) on a possible stand-alone management contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) in South Carolina are now due by 3 p.m. ET Jan. 29. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the one-week extension for market research comments in a Tuesday notice on a […]

The U.S. Energy Department Office of Inspector General (IG) is urging management at the Hanford Site in Washington state to provide more clarity and standardization in its recordkeeping for employee radiation dose. Greater use of standard forms and clearer lines of authority would better ensure that accurate employee histories of radiation dosage are kept, according […]

Constellis, the Reston, Va.-based parent of U.S. Energy Department contractor Centerra Group, has reached a “forbearance agreement” with certain creditors in order to get some leeway on loan repayment while it works to shore up its balance sheet. “Constellis recently closed on a $110 million delayed-draw credit facility provided by a subset of its existing […]