The West Valley Demonstration Project in Cattaraugus County, N.Y., experienced a cold and snowy weekend sufficient to delay start of work on Monday, but avoided the worst of the mega-storm that dumped several feet of snow 35 miles to the north in Buffalo, N.Y.
“The site is in a two-hour delay, to allow employees who live away from the site ample time to safely commute into work,” a spokesperson for Department of Energy contractor CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley said in a Monday email to Exchange Monitor.
The Buffalo area, however, is recovering from roughly six feet of snow between Friday and Sunday which, among other things, forced the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills to relocate a home game to Detroit.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has pushed back its solicitation timetable for retaining a contractor to build a viewing platform at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
The Nashville District of the U.S. Army Corps plans to issue its invitation for bids around Dec. 16 with an organized site visit scheduled Jan. 4, according to an updated federal procurement notice published online Tuesday Nov. 22.
Previously, the Army Corps had planned both events prior to Christmas, with the solicitation Dec. 5 and the site visit occurring Dec. 13. Prospective bidders are sought on the National Historic Preservation Project to build a viewing platform and general-purpose building at the former K-25 gaseous diffusion plant footprint. Construction could start within 30 days of the contract award, according to the notice.
Suzy Sterner was promoted to senior vice president and chief corporate affairs officer at BWX Technologies, the company announced recently.
Sterner, who joined BWX Technologies (BWXT) in 2019, was already leading the Lynchburg, Va., company’s communications and government relations operations at the time of her latest promotion, according to a BWXT LinkedIn post. She’ll now also be responsible for the company’s community engagement and environmental, social, and governance initiatives, according to the post.
BWXT is a partner on several joint ventures managing Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites, including its lead role in liquid waste remediation at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Sterner has held various roles over her career in the public and private sectors, including communications and government relations. Like BWXT CEO Rex Geveden, a former top official at NASA, Sterner worked in the space business before coming to BWXT, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s latest mask mandate lasted only three days, after which COVID-19 community transmission rates dropped below high, according to a lab memo.
The New Mexico nuclear weapons laboratory let employees take the masks off Nov. 18 after briefly making face coverings mandatory again on Nov. 15, according to an internal email, the text of which the Exchange Monitor read Monday.
Masks are mandatory at DOE facilities in locations with a high rate of community transmission, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention. Los Alamos County had a low community transmission rate as of Monday, as did Santa Fe, according to the CDC.
