Department of Energy

The safeguards and security branch of Hanford Site support services contractor Mission Support Alliance has accumulated 1.1 million safe work hours without a lost workday injury, the Department of Energy announced Tuesday. The safeguards and security team includes the Hanford Patrol and other security operations, security analysis, and safeguards across the Hanford Site. Employees participate […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Trump administration is likely in its fiscal 2020 federal budget plan to again propose funding for licensing the radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, nuclear industry representatives said here Tuesday. But whether Congress will appropriate any money remains in question. “I think the budget request for the next fiscal […]

The Department of Energy last week completed cleanup of the 618-10 Burial Ground, one of the most hazardous radioactive waste dumps in the Columbia River Corridor at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The last step involved replanting about 120 acres. The burial ground was used from 1954 to 1963 for waste from the 300 […]

Fluor Idaho has told local officials in eastern Idaho it could in June or July start paring the workforce for the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. Roughly 200 workers could be let go at that point at the facility, which employs about 650 people, Dana Kirkham, […]

The U.S. Energy Department on Thursday issued an updated draft request for proposals for the Hanford Site Central Plateau Cleanup Contract, which serves as a model for the agency’s end-state procurement approach for environmental remediation. The DOE Office of Environmental Management issued the updated draft RFP to better align the document with a special notice […]

The GeoMelt vitrification system installed at Perma-Fix Northwest in Richland, Wash., has wrapped up its initial demonstration melt of sodium-contaminated radioactive waste from the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Veolia Nuclear Services Federal Services, which owns the technology, in September received the INL contract to “demonstrate at full-scale” the system’s capabilities to process the reactive […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), the tank management contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, is seeking expressions of interest from potential subcontractors willing to manage secondary process waste from the Effluent Treatment Facility. The facility, located in the 200 Area at Hanford, currently treats 28,000 gallons of wastewater each year from processing activities […]

The U.S. Justice Department has asked for a stay in its lawsuit against the state of Washington over a new law that eases state workers’ compensation requirements for claims from employees of the Energy Department’s Hanford Site. The partial shutdown of the U.S. government has prohibited federal attorneys from working, even on a voluntary basis, […]

Two advocacy groups in New Mexico filed a legal appeal Thursday seeking to undo a New Mexico Environment Department order that allows the Energy Department to change the way it records underground transuranic waste volume at its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad. The Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) and Nuclear Watch New […]

Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, comprised of Jacobs, Fluor, and BWX Technologies, got off to a “satisfactory” start in its first year as cleanup contractor at the Energy Department’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, earning 60 percent of its potential fee, according to a recent scorecard. The DOE’s Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office (PPPO) this week rolled out fee […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B), cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is seeking a subcontractor to conduct off-site laboratory tests on soil, water, and debris samples. The successful bidder must be able to conduct inorganic, organic, and radiochemical analyses on a wide variety of environmental samples, […]

The Department of Energy is not caught directly in the partial federal government shutdown, but the Hanford Site in Washington state is still feeling some effects indirectly. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is a Hanford regulator and one of the three signatories to the Tri-Party Agreement that governs cleanup at the former plutonium production complex. […]

The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) has thrown its weight behind the Department of Energy’s case for reinterpreting the definition of high-level radioactive waste based primarily on its risk characteristics and not its source of origin. The organization, representing about 100 DOE contractors, filed its formal comments endorsing the reinterpretation shortly after the department proposed […]

Several advocacy groups have filed a petition asking a U.S. District Court to make public certain grand jury records from a long-closed investigation into the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant site in Colorado. In June 1989, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Environmental Protection Agency jointly conducted a raid at Rocky Flats, seizing 135 […]

Lynchburg, Va., -based BWX Technologies said Thursday it has named Suzy Sterner as its vice president for government relations. Sterner started work in the newly created position on Monday and will report to Regina Carter, senior vice president for government affairs and communications. The Energy Department vendor said Sterner will direct BWXT’s interaction with the […]

The White House this week teed up a radical reshaping of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), proposing to add two new members to the independent federal watchdog and boot one member. On Wednesday and Thursday, the Trump administration nominated a combined four people to the board. The nominees include new faces and existing board […]

The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) has thrown its weight behind the Department of Energy’s case for reinterpreting the definition of high-level radioactive waste based primarily on its risk characteristics and not its source of origin. The organization, representing about 100 DOE contractors, filed its formal comments endorsing the reinterpretation shortly after the department proposed […]

The White House on Wednesday renominated Rita Baranwal to lead the Department of Energy’s nuclear power and waste activities. Baranwal was among more than 150 people nominated for federal jobs late Wednesday, many of whom were previously nominated but did not get Senate votes before the last Congress ended on Jan. 3. When one session […]

By John Stang A California nuclear waste disposal startup on Wednesday successfully inserted a narrow canister through 2,000 feet of vertical shaft to deposit it in a horizontal tunnel — and then later retrieved the same small container. Deep Isolation, a 2-year-old firm from Berkeley, demonstrated its prototype canister at an undisclosed commercial oil and […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), the tank management contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, is seeking expressions of interest from potential subcontractors willing to manage secondary process waste from the Effluent Treatment Facility. The facility, located in the 200 Area at Hanford, currently treats 28,000 gallons of wastewater each year from processing activities […]

The Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) has thrown its weight behind the Department of Energy’s case for reinterpreting the definition of high-level radioactive waste based primarily on its risk characteristics and not its source of origin. The organization, representing about 100 DOE contractors, filed its formal comments endorsing the reinterpretation shortly after the department proposed […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., received 311 shipments of defense transuranic waste during 2018. May was the busiest month of the year, with 37 shipments. January, with two federal holidays and a two-week maintenance outage, was the slowest month in 2018 with only 14 shipments, according to a monthly […]

The U.S. Justice Department has asked for a stay in its lawsuit against the state of Washington over a new law that eases state workers’ compensation requirements for claims from employees of the Energy Department’s Hanford Site. The partial shutdown of the U.S. government has prohibited federal attorneys from working, even on a voluntary basis, […]

In strongly worded comments, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other advocacy groups said the Department of Energy’s proposed plan to reinterpret the definition of high-level radioactive waste would violate the law and should be withdrawn. The Energy Department “has issued this HLW Reinterpretation Proposal in hopes of providing for itself the authority to define […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B), cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is seeking a subcontractor to conduct off-site laboratory tests on soil, water, and debris samples. The successful bidder must be able to do inorganic, organic, and radiochemical analyses on a wide variety of environmental samples, […]

As of early January, an Energy Department contractor has converted more than 70,500 metric tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) at two former gaseous diffusion plant sites. The material is being converted into uranium oxide, a more stable chemical form for storage, reuse, or disposal. Conversion operations at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November spent just $901 of its remaining balance from the fund intended to pay for a permanent repository for radioactive waste. That left the agency with $414,118 in unobligated balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, according to the latest expenditure report to Congress. Of the November spending, $379 was […]

Several advocacy groups have filed a petition asking a U.S. District Court to make public certain grand jury records from a long-closed investigation into the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant site in Colorado. In June 1989, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Environmental Protection Agency jointly conducted a raid at Rocky Flats, seizing 135 […]

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) hopes the new administration of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) will review a decision made in late December by the state environmental agency on waste-disposal accounting at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Albuquerque Journal reported Sunday. Udall urged New Mexico Environment Department Secretary-Designate James Kenney to […]

The Department of Energy has received approval from the state of Tennessee to proceed with demolition of two Manhattan Project-era buildings at the Biology Complex within the Y-12 National Security Complex at the Oak Ridge Reservation. Representatives from DOE and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) confirmed this week the state has given […]