Department of Energy

Lynchburg, Va., -based BWX Technologies on Wednesday reported a drop in both revenue and profit during the first quarter of 2019. The company 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 $0.66 per […]

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 of Environmental Management Anne Marie White said when asked about the cause of escalating liability, by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), during a […]

A small business that worked at the Hanford Site in Washington state, i-3 Global, has been accused of failing to pay $446,618 to another small business two years after being named Department of Energy Protege of the Year. Kennewick, Wash.-based I-3 Global, a provider of information technology and other services, was named in a civil […]

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 […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) on Tuesday again tried to put New Mexico in line for a piece of the high-assay low-enriched uranium market the Department of Energy is trying to spark with a promised sole-source contract award to Centrus Corp. The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy in January announced it planned to award Bethedsa, Md.-based […]

Las Vegas-based Longenecker & Associates has hired Brian Bielecki, a longtime manager with experience at Department of Energy sites and the nuclear power industry, as its group vice president for mission assurance. The Energy Department subcontractor announced the addition Monday, the same day Bielecki joined the company. Bielecki, who reports to Senior Vice President for […]

The AECOM-led Nuclear Waste Partnership 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 from the award because of “breakdowns” in the contractor’s industrial hygiene […]

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 must have a say in approval of disposal of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) low-level radioactive waste in the state, Gov. Greg Abbott said in an April 26 letter to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki. Proceedings underway at both federal agencies could ultimately open the door for disposal of […]

Whistleblower proceedings afforded workers at Energy Department contractors and subcontractors would be revised under a rulemaking proposal announced in a Federal Register notice today. 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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

The Energy Department should make a “full evaluation” of Cold War 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 […]

An article in the April 25 Weapons Complex Morning Briefing should have said the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requires an Energy Department report to Congress on reinterpretation of high-level radioactive waste. Also, the article should have said the Energy Communities Alliance represents local governments near federal nuclear facilities.

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 Friday. “The tunnel has been filled with grout, and we’ve significantly reduced the risk of contaminating Hanford workers, the public, or the environment,” […]

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 […]

The Energy Department’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project in Utah recently marked 10 years of uranium mill tailings shipments to off-site disposal. On April 20, 2009, the first load of mill tailings left the Moab site by rail. Today, more than 9.5 million tons of the estimated 16 million tons of tailings […]

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) is reviving legislation aimed at moving the federal government closer to resolving the decades-long impasse over disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste. Barrasso on Wednesday unveiled the discussion draft of the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019, which is largely identical to the same-named bill introduced in 2017 by Rep. […]

The winner of the anticipated 10-year, $1 billion paramilitary security contract at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina must pay for much of its own ammunition and all the dog food. That is among the tidbits in in a third round of questions and answers posted Wednesday on the DOE procurement website. […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is picking up North Wind-led Portsmouth Mission Alliance’s (PMA) 22-month contract option for infrastructure support services at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The department on Tuesday announced the extension, valued at an estimated $67 million, one day before the three-year base contract with the North Wind-Swift & Staley […]

Cleanup plans for the Hanford Site in Washington state, along with remediation milestones established under the Tri-Party Agreement, are in “serious jeopardy,” the Hanford Advisory Board said Wednesday in its annual budget advice letter to the Department of Energy. “The HAB views the combined lack of compliant budget appropriations, the unanticipated problems at Hanford, and […]

With the addition of Darcey Bolin as her chief of staff, Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White filled one of the few remaining openings in her organizational brain trust. Now five of the top six management posts under White are filled with permanent rather than “acting” officials, according to the April 1 […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy locked Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) staff out of meetings at least one defense nuclear site, a member of the independent federal nuclear health-and-safety watchdog said here Tuesday. At a public meeting, board member Joyce Connery said DNFSB staff at a site she did not identify were denied access […]

Six corporate teams have been approved to compete for £400 million ($517 million) worth of decommissioning projects at the former Dounreay fast-reactor site in Scotland. Opportunities under a broad decommissioning services framework include building a size reduction facility, shaft and silo decommissioning, and teardown of historic active laboratories, according to a Tuesday announcement from decommissioning […]

By the end of April, the state of Idaho will have assessed $5.86 million in total penalties against the Department of Energy for failure to start operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory years ago. But DOE and contractor Fluor Idaho are doing their third extended test run of the […]

An advocacy group has asked the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) to hold public meetings soon on the Energy Department’s plan to build a new underground multi-use shaft into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. In an April 15 letter to NMED, Southwest Research and Information Center Administrator Don Hancock said the state […]

A Department of Justice civil lawsuit alleging past fraud and kickbacks under the Mission Support Alliance contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state should be dismissed, plaintiffs said in motions filed Wednesday with a federal court. A hearing on their motions is set for Oct. 3 in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. The […]

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said Wednesday she will ask for a briefing on the Department of Energy’s new end-state contracting model for nuclear cleanup projects, which will be used for the first time at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Cantwell announced her intention after hearing concerns following a tour of the Hanford Site. The […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday gave Bechtel National a rating of “satisfactory,” and 47.9% of the maximum performance fee available for 2018, for its work on the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. That performance evaluation was good for $3.77 million out of a total available $7.87 million in the […]

The Energy Department’s growing environmental liability will be the subject of a May 1 hearing before the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee. “The Department of Energy faces nearly $500 billion in environmental liabilities related to cleaning up nuclear and hazardous waste left over from Cold War weapons production and federal energy research,” […]