Department of Energy

Restructuring the independent federal agency charged with health and safety oversight at Department of Energy nuclear-weapon and cleanup sites will not involve layoffs, according to the head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. “We are not going to have to involuntarily separate anyone,” acting DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton said in an Aug. 16 telephone […]

William Cooper, the Trump administration’s nominee to become Energy Department general counsel, was passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a voice vote Thursday afternoon. The vote came after the panel’s business meeting was postponed Thursday morning, a committee staffer said. The nominee will now await action by the full Senate, […]

A recent meeting between senior U.S. and South Korean officials ended with a pledge to cooperate on dealing with used nuclear reactor fuel and other atomic operations, according to the Department of Energy. Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun on Friday led the second plenary of the High […]

William Cooper, the Trump administration’s nominee to become Energy Department general counsel, was passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a voice vote Thursday afternoon. The vote came after the panel’s business meeting was postponed Thursday morning, a committee staffer said. The nominee will now await action by the full Senate. […]

By John Stang Perma-Fix expects its GeoMelt radioactive waste treatment system to go into fuller production in late 2018 at its Washington state location, according to President and CEO Mark Duff. Early this year, the Atlanta-based waste management company entered into a contract with Veolia Nuclear Solutions to install its patented vitrification technology in Perma-Fix’s […]

The Government Accountability Office dismissed a bid protest over a $137 million consolidated technical support contract at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office because the award is being reconsidered. That is according to the Aug. 17 decision document issued by the GAO after Albuquerque, N.M.-based Strategic Management Solutions protested the June contract award to a […]

It would be “logical” for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to take over as landlord of the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., “at some point,” the site’s top federal manager told attendees of a local group’s breakfast meeting Wednesday. Savannah River Site Manager Michael Budney’s remarks before the Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness […]

The New Mexico State Auditor’s Office has questioned whether the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) is improperly engaged in lobbying. Most press attention generated by an Aug. 7 report from State Auditor Wayne Johnson has focused on reimbursement of travel and entertainment expenses by the nongovernmental group’s former executive director, Andrea Romero. The organization […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday released a draft solicitation for a Savannah River Site management and operations contract that could be worth nearly $15 billion over 10 years, including construction of new tritium facilities to power up U.S. nuclear weapons. Interested parties can meet DOE officials on site for three days of one-on-one meetings beginning […]

Most work resumed Monday on the Hanford Site’s SX Tank Farm after a stop-work order was lifted. One or more workers called a halt to work Friday in the radioactive waste storage area out of safety concerns that a hole discovered the day before could impair the integrity of a nearby underground tank. However, a […]

The Energy Department is expected to review its June award of a contract worth up to $137 million over five years for consolidated technical support services at the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) to a subsidiary of Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve). The Government Accountability Office on Friday dismissed a bid protest of the contract award, brought […]

Having already been removed at least temporarily from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) is suspending his re-election campaign while he fights federal insider trading charges. Collins said Aug. 11 he will use his remaining months in office to advocate both for his constituents and the agenda of President Donald Trump. […]

The Energy Department’s Office of River Protection expects the workload will increase significantly during the next contract period at the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Office of Environmental Management on July 30 issued a draft request for proposals (RFP) for a potential seven-year, $904 million contract for analytical work, testing, […]

The Environmental Protection Agency has until Oct. 15 to take action on a Richland, Wash., man’s petition requesting it object to the Clean Air Act operating permit issued in June 2016 by the Washington state Department of Ecology for the Hanford Site. Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr., of U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington, set the […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina earlier this month sent its first shipment of transuranic (TRU) waste for 2018 to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, ending a yearlong layoff in waste exports. The DOE facility said in a press release it shipped “five standard waste boxes” to […]

The Energy Department’s Carlsbad, N.M., Field Office is accepting public comments through Aug. 29 on the potential environmental impact of building a 3-mile-long bypass road near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The public comment period began July 31 for the draft environmental assessment, according to a recent notice from DOE. The subcontract for the […]

The Energy Department wants to hear from businesses and universities that could test air ventilation systems for nuclear facilities. The department’s Office of Environmental Management issued a request for information (RFI)/sources sought notice Thursday seeking input from vendors that can evaluate high-efficiency particulate air filters for use in high-hazard DOE facilities. These filters help protect […]

Effective today, longtime James Owendoff has left his job as the No. 2 official in the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) to become a special adviser on nuclear cleanup issues at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Mark Gilbertson, associate principal deputy assistant secretary for EM’s Office of Regulatory and Policy Affairs, […]

The Trump administration’s nominee to become Energy Department general counsel said during his confirmation hearing Thursday the agency should follow the law on establishing a nuclear waste repository below Yucca Mountain in Nevada During the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee session, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) asked how William Cooper would approach the long-planned […]

The Department of Energy is extending the public comment period for an evaluation that would allow remaining radioactive waste in the Hanford Site’s 16 C Farm single-shell tanks to be grouted in place after waste retrieval last fall was completed to regulatory standards. The grouting could allow the underground waste tanks in Eastern Washington state […]

One or more workers called a halt to work at the Hanford Site’s SX Tank Farm on Friday out of concern that an unexplained hole could indicate a problem with the integrity of an underground radioactive waste storage tank about 6 feet away. Personnel at the Department of Energy cleanup site in Washington state can […]

Workers at the Hanford Site in Washington state met the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2018 goal of treating 2.2 billion gallons of contaminated groundwater early, despite some downtime or limited operations at treatment plants to make improvements. Contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. hit the goal nearly two months before the Sept. 30 end of […]

A new report out of New Mexico raises further questions about the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) has handled reimbursement of expenses for travel, meals, alcoholic beverages, and entertainment. The report, critical of the RCLC Board of Directors and former Executive Director Andrea Romero, was issued Aug. 8 by the Adams+Crow Law Firm of […]

A major infrastructure replacement at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is inching toward completion, though the Department of Energy is hesitant to state when that might occur. The agency first reported in April that Parsons, the contractor that constructed the facility and is preparing it for operations, would need to replace […]

The Energy Department has extended the contract for the current security provider for the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee through the end of the year. After a bid protest against the follow-on contract, the Energy Department said Aug. 10 it intends to keep Reston, Va.-based National Strategic Protective Services on the job from Sept. 22 […]

The Department of Energy will not be allowed to start filling the second Hanford Site PUREX Plant tunnel storing radioactive waste until after the end of a public comment period mandated by Washington state. In the wake of the partial collapse of the first PUREX storage tunnel in May 2017, DOE wants to use a […]

The 222-S Laboratory at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state was evacuated and two workers taken to a hospital on Thursday after a small fire. A piece of analytical equipment caught fire shortly before noon, according to Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), which operates the lab where Wastren Advantage analyzes samples of […]

President Donald Trump on Monday signed the $717 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2019, officially setting budget limits for the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons and cleanup operations. Trump did not mention either program during a signing ceremony before several hundred people at the U.S. Army’s Fort Drum in New York state. Congress […]

A truck carrying equipment contaminated at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant traveled to two other sites on the Energy Department property and then off-site before the problem was discovered. Employees at the cleanup site in eastern Washington state received a DOE message about the incident last week. The incident occurred amid preparations to resume […]

Maryland-based nuclear fuel provider Centrus Energy is working toward termination of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for its American Centrifuge Lead Cascade demonstration project at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Most decontamination and decommissioning at the site was finished by June 30, Centrus said in a 10-Q quarterly report filed Thursday with […]