Oak Ridge Reservation

The Government Accountability Office has denied a protest by a group called Oak Ridge Environmental Partners that challenged the Department of Energy’s  $8.3-billion Cleanup Contract issued in October to United Cleanup Oak Ridge, a team led by Amentum and Jacobs, the current incumbents at the Tennessee site. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) notice dated Tuesday […]

Six employees at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory who refused COVID-19 vaccine are assured of their day in court after obtaining a right to sue from a federal agency, the judge in the case confirmed Monday. The six plaintiffs filed an amended complaint Jan. 4 against the University of Tennessee- Battelle partnership (UT-Battelle) operating the […]

Construction and commissioning of key nuclear-cleanup facilities headline the Department of Energy’s goals for calendar year 2022, according to the Environmental Management (EM) Office’s recently-published list of priorities.  Among these are two big projects at the Hanford Site in Washington state. There, EM intends to finish cold commissioning of the first of two melters at […]

Since the confirmed, domestic start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has confirmed 7,916 cases of the illness among the agency’s workforce, a spokesperson said Thursday. Likewise, the latest weekly total of confirmed cases is 313, a whopping jump of 242 since the office’s last weekly […]

A handful of employees at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have until Tuesday to respond to their employer’s motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit about the lab’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Just after Christmas, on Dec. 27, U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley allowed the six employees of UT-Battelle, the University of […]

A half-dozen employees suing the operator of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate have asked a federal court in Knoxville for two more weeks, until Jan. 4, 2022, to file their amended complaint. The plaintiffs filed their motion for the extension in the U.S. District Court […]

There was “no impact” to Department of Environmental Management sites in Kentucky and Tennessee after a rash of unusual late-autumn tornados wrought death and destruction across the middle of the country over the weekend. “Thankfully, no impact to our EM sites,” a spokesperson for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) wrote Monday […]

With a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate suspended at the site, employees put on unpaid leave because they would not take the vaccine were scheduled to return to work Monday at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a lab spokesperson told the Exchange Monitor. “To comply with the federal court order and the state’s suspension of its […]

Oak Ridge Environmental Partners, the same venture that last month challenged the Department of Energy’s issuance of the new Cleanup Contract, potentially worth $8.3 billion, at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, protested the contract again. A notice dated Dec. 3 on the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) website showed another protest of the contract issued […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA. — During an address this week to the National Cleanup Workshop here, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) touched upon everything from Congress averting a government shutdown to the need for a new disposal site for nuclear debris at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. “We are either going to pass a budget or get […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—During a Thursday address to the National Cleanup Workshop here, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) touched upon everything from Congress averting a government shutdown to the need for a new disposal site for nuclear debris at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. “We are either going to pass a budget or get a year-long CR […]

Oak Ridge Environmental Partners, the same venture that last month challenged the Department of Energy’s issuance of the new Cleanup Contract, potentially worth $8.3 billion, at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, protested the contract again. A notice dated Friday on the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) website showed another protest of the contract issued to […]

With COVID-19 cases declining again in the Department of Energy weapons complex and government officials considering how to deal with an emerging variant of the virus, much of this week’s industry focus is on courtroom battles concerning a small number of employees who refuse to comply with a vaccination mandate for federal contractors. On the […]

A lawsuit over the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s vaccine mandate will go on at least a little longer, now that a federal judge has allowed the plaintiffs until Dec. 22 to file a response to the lab prime contractor’s motion to dismiss the case. UT-Battelle, a team of the University of Tennessee and Battelle, is […]

A group called Oak Ridge Environmental Partners, has protested the Department of Energy’s multibillion-dollar remediation contract for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee awarded last month to an Amentum-Jacobs partnership. That’s according to a contract challenge dated Monday and posted to the Government Accountability Office’s website.  Debriefs were held last week on two major contracts […]

This week, the Department of Energy will brief losing bidders about its rationale for awarding multi-billion-dollar nuclear-cleanup contracts to teams led by Amentum and BWX Technologies, a senior industry official said last week at the Radwaste Summit in Summerlin, Nev. The executive made the comments on the sidelines of the annual summit, sponsored by ExchangeMonitor […]

A federal district judge in Tennessee has refused to issue a preliminary injunction against the Department of Energy’s management contractor for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a case brought by a small group of plaintiffs refusing to comply with a vaccine mandate. While contractor UT-Battelle’s treatment of employees seeking vaccine exemptions could have been […]

Although a federal judge in Tennessee turned down a preliminary injunction for vaccine holdouts at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and contractor UT-Battelle has asked that the lawsuit be tossed, a federal magistrate could take over the case. On Tuesday, District Judge Charles Atchley, Jr. said he wants a federal magistrate judge […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — A labor union official representing workers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee had kind words Thursday for the manner in which the site’s remediation contractor, an Amentum-Jacobs partnership, handled its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. “They confronted their unvaccinated,” by setting an early, Oct. 1 deadline, Jimmy Hart, president of […]

Magistrate Judge Could Take Over Suit by ORNL Resisters Although a federal judge in Tennessee turned down a preliminary injunction for vaccine holdouts at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and contractor UT-Battelle has asked that the lawsuit be tossed, a federal magistrate could take over the case. On Tuesday, District Judge Charles […]

A federal district judge in Tennessee has refused to issue a preliminary injunction against the Department of Energy’s management contractor for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a case brought by a small group of plaintiffs refusing to comply with a vaccine mandate. While contractor UT-Battelle’s treatment of employees seeking vaccine exemptions could have been […]

There was no word by deadline Friday on the fate of a federal preliminary injunction request that seeks to prevent the Department of Energy contractor running the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee from placing a small group of COVID-19 vaccine refusers on unpaid leave. There were no new records on the case posted online […]

The Department of Energy said in an online notice Tuesday it is awarding the new remediation contract at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee to an Amentum-Jacobs team called United Cleanup Oak Ridge LLC in a deal potentially worth $8.3 billion over a 10-year ordering period. United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), won the Oak Ridge […]

Testimony on a restraining order, keeping the Department of Energy contractor running the Oak Ridge National Laboratory from placing a small group of COVID-19 vaccine refusers on unpaid leave, has closed and the order will remain in effect short-term. The current temporary restraining order will “remain in effect until either Friday at 5:00 p.m. or […]

The Department of Energy said in an online notice Tuesday it is awarding the new remediation contract at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee to an Amentum-Jacobs team called United Cleanup Oak Ridge LLC in a deal potentially worth $8.3 billion over a 10-year ordering period. United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), won the Oak Ridge […]

A hearing was to continue this morning in a federal courtroom in Knoxville, Tenn., over a preliminary injunction requested by a half-dozen employees at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory who seek to avoid being placed on unpaid leave for refusal to take a vaccine against COVID-19. The hearing began yesterday in the […]

Lawyers representing a half-dozen employees at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee who refuse to take a COVID-19 vaccine are expected Tuesday to argue in federal court that contractor UT-Battelle could rely on options other than a vaccine mandate to protect workers during the pandemic. Had UT-Battelle (UTB), the joint venture […]

The Department of Energy will solicit more public input this fall on plans for a new low-level waste landfill, the Environmental Management Disposal Facility project, at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, before issuing an updated draft of its record of decision in December, according to an agency spokesperson. The DOE Office of Environmental Management […]

After ordering a temporary halt to certain COVID-19 vaccine-related firings at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory last week, a federal judge was scheduled to hear arguments next week about whether to extend the firing moratorium, according to court papers. U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley in the Eastern District of Tennessee issued a temporary restraining order […]

Mark Gilbertson, one of the top supervisors at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch, is calling it a career at the end of the month, the agency said Tuesday. Gilbertson, currently associate principal deputy assistant secretary for regulatory and policy affairs, is retiring after 25 years at the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) […]