Oak Ridge Reservation

Barring a last-minute announcement from the Department of Energy, 2018 will end much like it started: With many major contractors waiting to see who will win a multibillion-dollar, 10-year contract for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The most recent procurement schedule for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, from Nov. […]

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on Monday announced he will leave the Senate after 2020. Alexander chairs the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, in which capacity he is the gatekeeper for upper chamber funding of the Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration. He has held the gavel there since 2015. The […]

The Energy Department has chosen agency veteran Laura Wilkerson as deputy manager at the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) in Tennessee. Wilkerson has been at DOE for 25 years and was previously director of OREM’s Planning and Execution Division, which helps coordinate remediation at the East Tennessee Technology Park, the Y-12 National Security […]

Stakeholders now have through Jan. 9 to weigh in on the proposed new 2.2-million-cubic yard-landfill to eventually replace the existing facility at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. An Energy Department spokesman confirmed by email the public comment deadline has been extended from Dec. 10. This marks the second extension — DOE had […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Government Accountability Office (GAO) plans to publish three reports during January and February that will detail challenges facing the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). That was a major takeaway from a Tuesday presentation to a panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine by GAO Director of […]

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) hopes to remain chairman of the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee when the next Congress convenes in January, a staffer confirmed. The longtime lawmaker has held the post since 2015. There was no word Tuesday on whether Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) expects to stay on as her party’s ranking […]

A joint venture, APTIM-North Wind Construction, has won a $92 million contract from the Energy Department to build the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the four-year award in a Tuesday press release. The agency received two proposals for […]

Stakeholders have until 5 p.m. local time Monday to submit public comment on the Energy Department’s proposed new waste disposal facility at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. Officially called the Environmental Management Disposal Facility (EMDF) is a proposed a 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill to replace the current one that has been taking waste since 2002 […]

A joint venture, APTIM-North Wind Construction, has won a $92 million contract from the Energy Department to build the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the four-year award in a Tuesday press release. The agency received two proposals for […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – While the Energy Department’s top nuclear cleanup manager said Wednesday her office will not use a new agency order to thwart oversight by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), members of the panel remained apprehensive. Order 140.1, issued in May, will not change the relationship between DOE’s Office of Environmental Management […]

Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Atkins Nuclear Secured Holdings Corp. on Nov. 8 named William Madia to its Board of Directors. In addition to heading his own energy consulting firm, Madia is chairman of the board and vice president for the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University in California. Originally called the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, […]

Longenecker & Associates, the Las Vegas-based Energy Department subcontractor, has added a former Honeywell executive and a retired Air Force officer to its advisory board. The new members are retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Sandra Finan, now a consultant based in Spokane, Wash.; and ex-Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies (FM&T) President Chris Gentile, Longenecker […]

Longtime Department of Energy nuclear cleanup manager Ken Picha will join Strata-G, a Knoxville, Tenn.-based subcontractor, on Dec. 1. Picha, who has most recently been the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s acting associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations, is retiring from federal service at the end of this week, an industry source said […]

International infrastructure company AECOM expects to be in the running for perhaps a half-dozen contracts from the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management in the next couple years. AECOM Chief Financial Officer Troy Rudd made the observation Monday during the company’s quarterly earnings call. The company expects to bid on five DOE cleanup contracts in […]

Longtime Department of Energy nuclear cleanup manager Ken Picha will join Strata-G, a Knoxville, Tenn.-based subcontractor, on Dec. 1. Picha, who has most recently been the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s acting associate principal deputy assistant secretary for field operations, is retiring from federal service at the end of this week, an industry source said […]

BWX Technologies has rolled up a trio of big “wins” in the Energy Department’s cleanup complex during the past 12 months and is hoping for more, President and CEO Rex Geveden said Wednesday. “There remain significant pending opportunities including the re-award of the Savannah River [Site] liquid waste contract, Savannah River management and operations,” along […]

The $15 million contract Centrus Energy was awarded last month for decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee demonstrates the company is tapping new markets while riding out tough times in the nuclear fuel business, managers said Thursday. The work authorization to prepare the K-1600 facility at the East […]

While Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) easily won re-election Tuesday, his ability to influence the money flow to the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory, and federal nuclear cleanup operations as a whole, appears to be on the decline. Simpson took more than 60 percent of the vote in Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District to decisively defeat Democrat […]

BWX Technologies has rolled up a trio of big “wins” in the Energy Department’s cleanup complex during the past 12 months and is hoping for more, President and CEO Rex Geveden said Wednesday. “There remain significant pending opportunities including the re-award of the Savannah River [Site] liquid waste contract, Savannah River management and operations,” along […]

The Energy Department must address concerns about potential water contamination before the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) is ready to sign off on a new waste disposal landfill at the Oak Ridge Reservation. “To gain the state’s support, DOE may need to revise the landfill design, because groundwater near the land surface could […]

The congressional district that covers the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) will have new representation in January after incumbent Rep. Steve Pearce stepped aside to run for New Mexico governor. Pearce is facing off against a colleague in Congress, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), to succeed term-limited governor Susana Martinez, a Republican. Pearce, […]

The Energy Department must address concerns about potential water contamination before the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) is ready to sign off on a new waste disposal landfill at the Oak Ridge Reservation. “To gain the state’s support, DOE may need to revise the landfill design, because groundwater near the land surface could […]

The Department of Energy has extended the public comment period by 45 days for the new 2.2-million-cubic yard waste disposal facility at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. Comments are now being accepted through Dec. 10. The department has also postponed a public hearing on the landfill, which had been scheduled for Oct. 18, until […]

The Department of Energy has extended the public comment period by 45 days for the new 2.2-million-cubic yard waste disposal facility at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. Comments are now being accepted through Dec. 10. The department has also postponed a public hearing on the landfill, which had been scheduled for this past Thursday, […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., had through Oct. 3 received 254 shipments of defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste in 2018. At least one more has come in since then — a shipment from Area G of DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. The Energy Department and its LANL […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., had received 250 shipments of defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste in 2018, as of the end of September. That figure, available from publicly accessible data, does not include a shipment from Area G of DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. The Energy […]

The federal government has lifted spending restrictions placed on Bechtel National purchasing after it addressed issues raised in a routine audit by the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency. In an Oct. 5 announcement, Bechtel said it received notification on Oct. 1 that its purchasing system had been reapproved for subcontracting activities, including at the Waste […]

PacTec, a maker of industrial bags for radioactive and hazardous waste, this month reasserted its federal court patent-infringement claim against a rival and fought back against that company’s counterclaim of improper behavior. In an Oct. 1 filing in U.S. District Court, the Clinton, La.-based company acknowledged that an employee in early May photographed work being […]

The Energy Department believes the central Bear Creek Valley is the best place within the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) in Tennessee to develop a new 2.2-million-cubic yard waste disposal facility – due in part to its geology and groundwater flow conditions. Because the same valley is home to Oak Ridge’s existing Environmental Management Waste Management […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management expects to award a trio of big contracts, two of them re-awards following protests by losing bidders, by the end of the year. The department hopes this month to reissue both the liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and a consolidated technical […]