Department of Energy

The state of New York plans to accept public input later this year on a draft permit for the U.S. Department of Energy to keep transuranic waste up to 10 years at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup site in Schenectady County. After the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) last year decided the […]

The Energy Department and its contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) are seeking to preserve their recently won change to the way in which transuranic waste volume is recorded at the New Mexico disposal facility. Both DOE and AECOM-led Nuclear Waste Partnership have been authorized to intervene in the legal challenge brought last […]

The Hanford Site’s occupational medicine contractor has been awarded 90.1 percent of the fee available for the last full fiscal year under its expiring contract. HPM Corp. (HPMC), of Kennewick, Wash., earned $315,350 of $350,000 available for fiscal 2018, according to a Department of Energy performance scorecard released Wednesday. HPM Corp. was awarded a six-year […]

The manager of the Department of Energy Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site, Brian Vance, has been selected as acting manager of the Hanford Richland Operations Office. This is the first time since the Office of River Protection (ORP) was established in 1998 that there has been one top manager for the entire […]

A lawsuit filed by local landowners claims negligence by Boeing and Southern California Edison is partly to blame for a wildfire that charred almost 100,000 acres of land in Los Angeles and Ventura counties in California. The complaint against the airplane manufacturer and the electric power company was filed Feb. 5 in California Superior Court […]

Fewer workers than Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth (FBP) hoped took advantage of a voluntary separation package offered for contractor personnel at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. After offering the package in December for up to 75 employees at the former gaseous diffusion plant, the decommissioning vendor said this week less than two-thirds of that number […]

Department of Energy contractor Parsons recently completed construction of a $13 million facility that will expedite treatment of liquid salt waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Parsons announced Monday it has finished building the Next Generation Solvent (NGS) facility and has it in operational standby, awaiting startup of the site’s Salt Waste […]

A motorist who died in an automobile crash inside the Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Thursday was not an employee of the Department of Energy or its contractors. “It wasn’t connected to our work,” a DOE spokesperson said by email. “It does appear that it was just a tragic accident — one of […]

The Wednesday meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board in Richland, Wash., has been canceled due to bad weather. Heavy snowfall across Washington state and a forecast for freezing rain prompted the cancellation. The meeting had already been reduced to a single day administrative session because the partial shutdown of the federal government in January prevented […]

The New Hampshire legislature is considering a bill intended to shut the door on disposal of nuclear waste in the state even while establishing three bodies to address the issue. House Bill 704 would formalize the legislature’s opposition to building a facility for high-level radioactive waste in New Hampshire “and finds that the north-east is […]

AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation hired 378 new workers in 2018, and expects to bring on a similar number of employees this year under its liquid waste contract at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Energy Department cleanup sites such as Savannah River have been pushing hiring programs in recent years to offset […]

Five sessions on federal environmental cleanup contracting have been scheduled for the 45th Waste Management Symposia from March 3 through 7 in Phoenix. Business sessions on the agenda are: A Monday, March 4, session on small business contracting to provide an overview of programs within the Department of Energy’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business […]

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday filed a civil lawsuit against Hanford Site contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA), accusing it of fraud through false claims and kickbacks from 2010 to 2015. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington also names Lockheed Martin Services Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Lockheed executive Jorge […]

The need to develop and win regulatory approval for new “oversized boxes” to move radioactive waste to the Idaho National Laboratory was central to the Energy Department’s decision against keeping the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) open past this year. After considering sustaining operations at the facility open after it finishes its mission to process […]

Heavy snowfall has stopped most work at the Hanford Site in Eastern Washington state. Day, swing, and graveyard shifts have been canceled Monday for the third successive day for workers not designated essential to safety or security. The cancellations started with the swing and graveyard shifts Friday night. By Saturday, key highways leading to the […]

The waiting game for re-award of a multibillion-dollar contract for liquid waste management at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina might be over soon, an AECOM executive said Tuesday. “We expect the Savannah River Site to be awarded any day now,” Chief Operating Officer Randall Wotring said during the company’s quarterly […]

The Government Accountability Office says there is an opportunity for the Department of Energy to balance the cost and risks posed by 149 single-shell tanks containing radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. A section a Jan. 29 GAO report, on growing liability costs for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, said the agency […]

The state of Idaho has fined the Energy Department more than $5.3 million for failure to begin operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory. The $5.3 million figure represents the total penalties as of Jan. 19, Natalie Creed, hazardous waste unit manager at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), […]

Two Tennessee-based firms, RSI Entech and Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve), appear set to keep their technical support business for the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) through the end of the year. Meanwhile, a source said Thursday the Energy Department appears to be moving ahead with plans for a consolidated technical and administrative support […]

Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering brought in $3.1 billion in revenue during the quarter ended Dec. 31, 73 percent higher than the $1.8 billion reported for the same period one year earlier Jacobs, which has a wide footprint in the Energy Department nuclear cleanup complex through subsidiary CH2M, reported earnings Tuesday for the first quarter of its […]

Doug Shoop, manager of the Department of Energy’s Richland Operations Office at the Hanford Site in Washington state, will retire from federal employment on Feb. 16. Shoop has led one of the two DOE offices overseeing the massive cleanup job at Hanford since July 2016. Brian Vance remains manager of the Office of River Protection. […]

The Energy Department has picked up a two-year option to keep North Wind Solutions in charge of the Transuranic Waste Processing Center at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee through October 2020. An Energy Department spokesperson confirmed Monday the department in October exercised its option to the original three-year base period. The entire five-year agreement […]

Allison Finelli, a staffer with the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management in Washington, D.C., recently accepted a 120-day detail as acting chief of staff at the Hanford Site’s Office of River Protection. In her interim role, Finelli will report to ORP Manager Brian Vance, sources said Thursday. She will serve as a primary aide […]

The Energy Department on Thursday issued the final request for proposals for the 222-S Laboratory Contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The RFP was posted on the DOE Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center website for the procurement. Questions on the solicitation are due before noon Eastern time on Feb. 28 and should be […]

More than 45 people registered for the Jan. 24 site tour and industry briefing on the Tank Closure Contract at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, including some major contractors in the weapons complex. Companies represented at the gathering included: AECOM; AVANTech; Bechtel; Booz Allen Hamilton; BWX Technologies; Columbia Energy and Environmental […]

After moving relatively quickly through the confirmation process, former Senate staffer Terri Donaldson became the Department of Energy’s (DOE) permanent inspector general. The Energy Department swore in Donaldson on Jan. 23 for a lifetime appointment, but did not announce her installation at the Forrestal Building in Washington until Thursday. The Donald Trump administration nominated Donaldson in June 2018. The […]

The projected cost of remaining cleanup at the Hanford Site has dramatically increased over the last three years, according to a Department of Energy report made public on Feb. 1. The 2019 Hanford Lifecycle Scope, Schedule and Cost report estimates the remaining cost of environmental remediation of the former plutonium production complex in Washington state […]

After moving relatively quickly through the confirmation process, former Senate staffer Terri Donaldson became the Department of Energy’s (DOE) permanent inspector general. The Energy Department swore in Donaldson on Jan. 23 for a lifetime appointment, but did not announce her installation at the Forrestal Building in Washington until Thursday. The Donald Trump administration nominated Donaldson in June 2018. The […]

A senior Department of Energy official on Thursday urged the Senate to confirm nominees to fill four leadership vacancies, including a candidate to oversee the agency’s nuclear power and waste activities. “I’d like to kindly ask the committee for consideration … around the leadership positions that are still open for us as a department. We […]

The Government Accountability Office says there is an opportunity for the Department of Energy to balance the cost and risks posed by 149 single-shell tanks containing radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. A section a Jan. 29 GAO report, on growing liability costs for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, said the agency […]