Department of Energy

The legacy cleanup contractor for the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico is seeking a firm to monitor vapor levels around certain disposal areas. Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) on Monday issued an updated request for proposals at www.fbo.gov for a subcontractor to collect and report on material disposal area […]

House lawmakers on Tuesday officially moved to start final negotiations with the Senate on the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, but partisan gridlock in the Senate threatened to limit progress on budget negotiations this week to a stopgap spending bill, or continuing resolution. The House late Tuesday queued up a vote for either Thursday or […]

The Colorado Department of Health and Environment expects the organization building a toll road near Denver to continue soil sampling around the site of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility and to submit its results by the end of the year. A soil sample taken by the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority in May […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site is delaying roofing repairs at its H Canyon nuclear materials processing facility, after stating at the start of the year construction would begin around midsummer. Repairs on the leaky roof are scheduled to begin “later this year,” Monte Volk, a DOE spokesman at the 310-square-mile facility near Aiken, […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A draft environmental assessment on commercial disposal of up to 10,000 gallons of radioactive wastewater from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina could be issued for public comment by the end of 2019. The feedback to the draft assessment, under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, will help determine if […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The U.S. Energy Department’s top official at the Hanford Site in Washington state has a full plate these days. That includes preparing for potential turnover of four top contractors and gearing up for operation of the $17 billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) by 2023, Brian Vance, who manages both the Hanford Office […]

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday advanced legislation that would prohibit any large reorganization of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) unless “specifically authorized by law.” The language was place in the fiscal 2020 energy and water development spending bill that is now due to be considered by the full Senate. If the restriction […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is giving stakeholders an additional 60 days to comment on a draft regulatory basis that could lay the groundwork for an update to regulations on disposal of Greater-Than-Class C low-level radioactive waste. The comment period had been scheduled to close on Sept. 20. But the agency, in a Federal Register […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) on Thursday said he would not seek to succeed Lamar Alexander in the Senate. “I’m not going anywhere,” Fleischmann said during a presentation at the U.S. Energy Department’s National Cleanup Workshop. “I’m staying in the House. I’m not running for the Senate.” After Alexander (R-Tenn.) announced in […]

Site preparation is continuing for the next large-scale Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, with plans to begin construction in May 2020. According to a post Monday on the site’s Facebook page, liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) has completed excavation of the location […]

The U.S. Energy Department does not have a clear strategy to combat rising costs and delays for the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Monday. In the report, GAO says the Energy Department has not followed best practices that dictate cost estimates be “comprehensive, accurate, […]

Fluor Idaho, the U.S. Energy Department’s cleanup contractor at the Idaho National Laboratory, expects within weeks to largely conclude its work at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP). As of late August, 140 cubic meters of transuranic waste debris remained to be treated at the AMWTP, company spokesman Erik Simpson said by email Tuesday. […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — While the U.S. Energy Department has moved slower than anticipated in awarding several multibillion-dollar nuclear cleanup contracts, it is important to get the process correct, DOE Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said Wednesday. “We want to make sure we are doing it the right way,” Dabbar said during his speech at the […]

Washington state and federal officials are ready for negotiations on “a holistic and realistic path forward” on the schedule for disposal of radioactive tank waste stored at the U.S. Energy Department’s Hanford Site, the top official at the facility said in a letter this week. Brian Vance, DOE manager for both the Richland Operations Office and […]

HENDERSON, Nev. – Nuclear cleanup vendors hope the U.S. Energy Department’s new approach to procurement succeeds in quickening the pace of contract awards, one executive said here last week. That was the assessment of the end-state contracting model offered Sept. 3 at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste Summit by Cathy Hickey, executive vice president for Navarro Research […]

HENDERSON, Nev. — There is roughly three decades of environmental work left at the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, mostly at Y-12 National Security Complex and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, according to one official. “We’ve got about 30 years of cleanup to do, we think, based on a relatively flat funding […]

The latest soil samples from around the Rocky Flats Natural Wildlife Refuge show residual radiological contamination at the one-time nuclear weapons site in Colorado poses no health threat for employees, hikers, or nearby communities, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a report Sept. 6. The samples taken in June around the former location […]

New Mexico-based Strategic Management Solutions filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Monday over a contract worth up to $137 million to provide technical support services for the Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. The DOE Office of Environmental Management issued the award on Aug. 22 to Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Enterprise Technical […]

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would provide $7.45 billion in fiscal 2020 for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The nuclear cleanup funding in the Senate energy and water appropriations bill outstrips the roughly $7.2 billion approved by the House of Representatives in a “minibus” spending package in June, along […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Sept. 6 visited the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory to assess challenges associated with cleanup of the site. The Energy Department said in a Friday press release that Perry was keeping a promise he made in June to visit the facility. The Energy […]

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday rolled out and quickly passed energy and water development legislation that would again give nothing for licensing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Instead, the $48.9 billion Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill for fiscal 2020 would provide funding for a pilot program […]

A senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday placed the onus squarely on Congress to provide the means for permanent disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste. For now, that is the long-planned Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, as directed under the 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Undersecretary of […]

Senate appropriators on Thursday joined their House counterparts in nixing a request from the Trump administration to transfer the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers back to its former home at the Department of Energy. The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 31-0 in favor of the $48.9 billion […]

Staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have formally determined there would be no significant environmental impact in a 20-year renewal of the Department of Energy’s license for storage of radioactive waste from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory. The agency is expected to formally post the final environmental […]

The U.S. Energy Department announced on Sept. 6 it would keep BWX Technologies as a contractor for storage of radioactive hot cell waste and spent nuclear fuel. The department’s Idaho Operations Office and Office of Nuclear Energy announced plans to issue the sole-source, five-year contract for continued waste storage at a BWXT facility in Lynchburg, […]

A subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee on Wednesday advanced legislation that would expand the mission of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) to aiding permanent disposal of U.S. radioactive waste. The waste language is one part of the much broader ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019 from Rep. Eddie […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — While the U.S. Energy Department has moved slower than anticipated in awarding several multibillion-dollar nuclear cleanup contracts, it is important to get the process correct, DOE Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said Wednesday. “We want to make sure we are doing it the right way,” Dabbar said during his speech at the […]

A top official at the U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday placed the onus squarely on Congress to provide the means for permanent disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste. For now, that means the long-planned Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, as directed under the 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Undersecretary of […]

New Mexico-based Strategic Management Solutions filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Monday over a contract worth up to $137 million to provide technical support services for the Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. The DOE Office of Environmental Management issued the award on Aug. 22 to Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Enterprise Technical […]

Fluor Idaho, the U.S. Energy Department’s cleanup contractor at the Idaho National Laboratory, expects within weeks to largely conclude its work at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP). As of late August, 140 cubic meters of transuranic waste debris remained to be treated at the AMWTP, company spokesman Erik Simpson said by email Tuesday. […]