Department of Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday it has contracted five small businesses to provide $24.9 million worth of demolition and other cleanup services for the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. The selected companies are: Aerostar SES, of Oak Ridge; ARS Aleut Remediation, of Port Allen, La.; CTI and Associates, of Knoxville, Tenn.; GEM Technologies, […]

Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering is getting new leadership in the business division that manages its operations for the Department of Energy. Terry Hagen, Jacobs’ chief operating officer and president for the Aerospace, Technology, and Nuclear group, will retire from leadership effective June 3. He will be succeeded by Dawne Hickton, a former CEO and vice chair […]

An 18-month extension for a major Department of Energy contract gave a boost to AECOM’s earnings for the second quarter and first half of its 2019 fiscal year. The Los Angeles-based infrastructure multinational on Wednesday reported just over $5 billion in revenue for the quarter and $10 billion for the six months through March 31. […]

BWX Technologies says it is not fretting about the Energy Department’s February cancellation of the liquid waste management procurement for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The company for a few months owned a chunk of the follow-on contract, now eliminated. But the Lynchburg, Va.-based DOE contractor still holds a piece of the current […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has set a public hearing for May 22 in Washington, D.C., to consider the Department of Energy’s efforts to prevent future accidents during nuclear waste operations. The half-day meeting is broken into two sessions, according to the recently released agenda. In the first, the DNFSB will focus on […]

The proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada could conceivably end up receiving 150,000 metric tons of radioactive waste by the second half of this century, according to a Nevada state government analysis of a proposed U.S. Senate bill to speed up that project. The April 29 memo from Bob Halstead, executive director […]

Energy Department contractor Fluor Idaho says 28 employees took a voluntary separation package this spring as it reduces the workforce for the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Idaho National Laboratory. Another 30 have since March 1 either transferred to other Fluor jobs away from AMWTP or left the company altogether, spokesman Erik […]

The Department of Energy has scheduled a public meeting for May 8 in Richland, Wash., to discuss its plans for waste storage and transportation staging areas to be built at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant. The meeting is part of the public involvement process as the Energy Department applies to the Washington state Department […]

Communities around Energy Department nuclear cleanup sites deserve a voice in the agency’s much-discussed end-state contracting model, according to the Energy Communities Alliance. Local input is important “particularly in regard to DOE’s plans to implement any updated or revised approaches to waste management and disposal,” the ECA said in a recent report on radioactive waste […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March spent just $128 of its remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, according to its latest update to Congress. That left the agency with $407,102 in unspent, unobligated funding for work on licensing a federal repository for disposal of spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste from […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology has opened a 60-day comment period for a proposed permit revision on a project to remove cesium and solids from tank waste at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site. In a May 1 notice, the state agency said it will accept public input through June 30 on a request by […]

An amendment to Washington state workers’ compensation law for employees of contractors at the Hanford Site takes effect July 28. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed the bill last week to further ease requirements for approval of state workers’ compensation claims, even as the Department of Justice sues to have the underlying bill declared unconstitutional. […]

A small business near Hanford, i-3 Global, has been accused of failing to pay $446,618 to another small business two years after it was named Department of Energy Protege of the Year. I-3 Global was named in a civil lawsuit filed by Integrated Global Staffing in Benton County Superior Court in Washington state. Integrated Global […]

The AECOM-led Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) pocketed nearly $10.8 million of a potential $12.5 million in fees for its operation of the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico during fiscal 2018. The NWP return would have been higher, but DOE deducted $100,000 for “breakdowns” in the contractor’s industrial hygiene program to protect […]

More than 30 piping repairs were made last month at the Savannah River Site’s aging H Canyon nuclear materials processing facility during a planned maintenance outage. Along with the repairs, site personnel used the outage to calibrate the facility’s electrical breakers and inspect its air tunnel, which has sustained corrosion over the years. “Regularly scheduled […]

The head of the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office assured a congressional panel Wednesday she will get to the bottom of its mushrooming environmental liability. “We are going to find out,” Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White said when asked about the cause of escalating liability, by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), during a […]

The Energy Department should prepare comprehensive assessments of Cold War nuclear sites now storing high-level radioactive waste to determine how much of it could safely be handled as low-level or transuranic waste, the Energy Communities Alliance said Monday. That is one of a set of recommendations in an ECA report, which aims to build on […]

The second of two storage tunnels for radioactive waste from the PUREX Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state has been stabilized. Contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. completed work on April 26. “The tunnel has been filled with grout, and we’ve significantly reduced the risk of contaminating Hanford workers, the public, or the […]

Department of Energy contractor Fluor moved up its quarterly earnings call by several hours Thursday to announce that David Seaton had stepped down as CEO and board member effective May 1. Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Carlos Hernandez is stepping in as “interim” CEO, although there is no leadership search planned, Alan Boeckmann, […]

Lynchburg, Va.,-based BWX Technologies on Wednesday reported a drop in both revenue and profit during the first quarter of 2019. The Department of Energy contractor recorded revenue of $416 million, down 9% from $457 million in the first three months of 2018, according to a press release. Meanwhile, net income dropped from $66.4 million, or […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has finished a readiness assessment as it prepares to make its first shipment of transuranic waste in 14 years to the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The national laboratory on March 29 completed the formal evaluation of its ability to characterize TRU waste and […]

Energy Department contractor Fluor Idaho has resumed treatment of the remaining sludge waste at the site of an April 11, 2018, accident at the Idaho National Laboratory in which four storage drums overheated and blew off their lids. Work at the Accelerated Retrieval Project 5 (ARP-5) facility at the Idaho Cleanup Project “has progressed safely […]

Whistleblower proceedings afforded workers at Energy Department contractors and subcontractors would be revised under a rulemaking proposal announced in a Federal Register notice Tuesday Contractor employees usually far outnumber federal workers at most DOE facilities and the agency started its own contractor protection program in 1992. This is part of an effort by DOE’s Office […]

The Energy Department has extended the deadline for responses to its small business sources-sought notice for Idaho National Laboratory remediation work by one week, until May 8. The extension is one of several modifications posted on the FedBizOps website since the initial market research notice was posted on April 10. The Energy Department is researching […]

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Huntington Ingalls Industries on Thursday posted a big drop in net income in its first quarter due to less favorable pension adjustments, but the company’s top line growth was strong and the outlook for further growth in the coming years was buoyed by strong orders and a record backlog. Net income […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is giving the Energy Department and the state of Tennessee a chance to file more information in a dispute over water discharge standards for radionuclides at the Oak Ridge Site. EPA Region 4 is seeking a much more stringent standard on water discharges at Oak Ridge than those now used […]

By John Stang Officials from Nevada sent mixed signals this week to the U.S. Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee regarding upcoming legislation intended to kick-start the stalled nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain. On Tuesday, nine of Nevada’s 17 counties indicated support for the legislation in a letter to committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wy.), […]

A trio of U.S. senators on Tuesday took a third swing at legislation that would remove management of the federal nuclear waste program from the Department of Energy in hopes of finally driving it forward. The 2019 version of the Nuclear Waste Administration Act appears identical to the iterations of the bill introduced in 2013 […]

Texas-based Fluor moved up its quarterly earnings call by several hours Thursday to announce that David Seaton has stepped down as CEO and board member effective May 1. Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Carlos Hernandez is stepping in as “interim” CEO, although there is no leadership search planned, Alan Boeckmann, now executive chairman […]

Officials from Nevada sent mixed signals this week to the U.S. Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee regarding legislation intended to kick-start the stalled nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain. On Tuesday, nine of Nevada’s 17 counties indicated support for the legislation in a letter to committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wy.), the bill’s sponsor, and […]