Group items tagged

The transition to the new contractor for Hanford's tank farms starts today. However, the transition to a new contractor for cleanup of central Hanford has yet to begin. The Department of Energy had announced that today was the soonest the transition might start, but has not issued a notice to proceed to the new contractor. At the tank farms, Washington River Protection Solutions begins work today to take over operations from outgoing DOE contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group. The transition is expected to be completed Oct. 1.

The Marin County Peace Conversion Commission will consider adding three new companies to its list of nuclear weapons contractors when it meets on Wednesday. The five-member commission is responsible for enforcing the county's voter-enacted Nuclear Free Zone law. The law prohibits the county from investing in or buying from nuclear weapons contractors and their subsidiaries, unless no reasonable alternative exists. The county's list of such contractors includes companies such as Compaq, General Electric, Hewlett Packard and the University of California. On Wednesday, the commission will consider adding Symmetricom, MTM Technologies Inc. and Insight Public Sector Inc. to the list. The meeting will be at 4 p.m. in Room 410B of the Civic Center in San Rafael.

The Marin County Peace Conversion Commission will consider adding three new companies to its list of nuclear weapons contractors when it meets on Wednesday. The five-member commission is responsible for enforcing the county's voter-enacted Nuclear Free Zone law. The law prohibits the county from investing in or buying from nuclear weapons contractors and their subsidiaries, unless no reasonable alternative exists. The county's list of such contractors includes companies such as Compaq, General Electric, Hewlett Packard and the University of California. On Wednesday, the commission will consider adding Symmetricom, MTM Technologies Inc. and Insight Public Sector Inc. to the list. The meeting will be at 4 p.m. in Room 410B of the Civic Center in San Rafael.

In a letter to President Obama, the Project On Government Oversight is asking that the NNSA's decision to withhold contractor performance data be reversed and open up that information for the public to see. Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor, a Washington-based newsletter, first reported the NNSA action that was described in an internal agency memo. "Given that 90 percent of DOE's work is performed by contractors, it is absolutely critical that PEPs (Performance Evaluation Plans) and PERs (Performance Evaluation Reports) be made available to public scrutiny immediately and not three years hence as recommended by Mr. Boyd's memo," POGO said in a press statement.

In a letter to President Obama, the Project On Government Oversight is asking that the NNSA's decision to withhold contractor performance data be reversed and open up that information for the public to see. Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor, a Washington-based newsletter, first reported the NNSA action that was described in an internal agency memo. "Given that 90 percent of DOE's work is performed by contractors, it is absolutely critical that PEPs (Performance Evaluation Plans) and PERs (Performance Evaluation Reports) be made available to public scrutiny immediately and not three years hence as recommended by Mr. Boyd's memo," POGO said in a press statement.

The Department of Energy (DOE) last week released a request for proposals (RFP) for a contractor to perform Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) Operations at the two DUF6 conversion facilities at Piketon and Paducah, Kentucky. The procurement will be for a single contractor to be awarded two cost-plus-award-fee contracts. The contract period will be for five years with a total estimated cost for the two contracts of $350-450 million. These facilities will convert DOE's inventory of DUF6, located at the Portsmouth and Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plants, into a stable chemical form that will be acceptable for transportation, reuse or disposal. The contractor will also provide cylinder surveillance and maintenance of the DUF6, low-enrichment uranium hexafluoride (UF6) and natural assay UF6 as well as empty the cylinders that store the DUF6 in a safe and environmentally acceptable manner. The contracts are expected to be awarded in 2010

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Hanford's contractors in the massive downwinders' lawsuit - raising hopes for a legal settlement for up to 2,000 radiation-exposed people after 18 years of court battles and millions of dollars in litigation costs. The high court's one-line denial of the contractors' appeal was announced today. The contractors, including E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co., General Electric Co. and UNC Nuclear Industries Inc., filed their appeal in August, asking the court to review two recent 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that sided largely with the downwinders.

Washington Savannah River Co., the former management and operations contractor for the Savannah River, S.C., nuclear site, has agreed to pay the federal government $2.4 million to resolve allegations of fraud. The U.S. Justice Department alleged that the company, owned by URS Corp., failed to disclose substantial projected increases in required pension fund contributions during 2003 contract negotiations. As part of the settlement, the contractor will withdraw claims for an additional $35.6 million for the Department of Energy to cover the rise in its pension costs.

Wackenhut Services Inc., the government's security contractor in Oak Ridge, has confirmed that a security supervisor was fired for allegedly threatening another employee. "One supervisor was terminated for verbally threatening another employee, while on duty, which is a violation of the WSI-OR Workplace Violence Policy," spokeswoman Courtney Henry said in response to questions about the incident. Wackenhut also confirmed other disciplinary actions that have been taken against supervisory personnel and strongly denied that the contractor management had shown more leniency toward supervisors than hourly personnel. Several security police officers in recent weeks have suggested that Wackenhut (also known as WSI-Oak Ridge) uses a double standard in doling out punishments.

Wackenhut Services Inc., the government's security contractor in Oak Ridge, has confirmed that a security supervisor was fired for allegedly threatening another employee. "One supervisor was terminated for verbally threatening another employee, while on duty, which is a violation of the WSI-OR Workplace Violence Policy," spokeswoman Courtney Henry said in response to questions about the incident. Wackenhut also confirmed other disciplinary actions that have been taken against supervisory personnel and strongly denied that the contractor management had shown more leniency toward supervisors than hourly personnel. Several security police officers in recent weeks have suggested that Wackenhut (also known as WSI-Oak Ridge) uses a double standard in doling out punishments.

Model for new UK reactors reveals damaging disagreements between Finland and French contractors From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the warehouse by the offices on Finland's Olkiluoto island, site of what should have been the world's first modern nuclear reactor. But inside, stacked on five kilometres of shelving, are 160,000 documents. "If a valve for the reactor is changed, it comes in a small box and a van full of documents," complains Jouni Silvennoinen, project director for Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the Finnish utility that ordered the plant from the Franco-German consortium Areva-Siemens. The paper mountain helps explain why the reactor, which should have cost €3bn (£2.72bn) and been working this year, will now miss its revised completion date of mid-2012 and will cost at least €5.3bn. In the latest delay, Finland's nuclear safety regulator halted welding on the reactor last week and criticised poor oversight by the sub-contractor, supplier and TVO.

Model for new UK reactors reveals damaging disagreements between Finland and French contractors From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the warehouse by the offices on Finland's Olkiluoto island, site of what should have been the world's first modern nuclear reactor. But inside, stacked on five kilometres of shelving, are 160,000 documents. "If a valve for the reactor is changed, it comes in a small box and a van full of documents," complains Jouni Silvennoinen, project director for Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the Finnish utility that ordered the plant from the Franco-German consortium Areva-Siemens. The paper mountain helps explain why the reactor, which should have cost €3bn (£2.72bn) and been working this year, will now miss its revised completion date of mid-2012 and will cost at least €5.3bn. In the latest delay, Finland's nuclear safety regulator halted welding on the reactor last week and criticised poor oversight by the sub-contractor, supplier and TVO.

It's one of the biggest cleanup jobs the United States has ever undertaken, and it's a long way from being done. Near the Columbia River in Hanford, Washington, contractors are decontaminating a nuclear fuel processing site that has 177 underground tanks holding 53 million gallons of nuclear waste, some of which has already leaked into the soil and groundwater. And the cleanup crew has learned that the known hazards are just the beginning. [S]loppy work by the contractors running the site saw all kinds of chemical and radioactive waste indiscriminately buried in pits underground over the 40 years Hanford was operational, earning it the accolade of the dirtiest place on Earth. In 2004, clean-up work uncovered a battered, rusted, and broken old safe containing a glass jug inside which was 400 millilitres of plutonium [New Scientist].

It's one of the biggest cleanup jobs the United States has ever undertaken, and it's a long way from being done. Near the Columbia River in Hanford, Washington, contractors are decontaminating a nuclear fuel processing site that has 177 underground tanks holding 53 million gallons of nuclear waste, some of which has already leaked into the soil and groundwater. And the cleanup crew has learned that the known hazards are just the beginning. [S]loppy work by the contractors running the site saw all kinds of chemical and radioactive waste indiscriminately buried in pits underground over the 40 years Hanford was operational, earning it the accolade of the dirtiest place on Earth. In 2004, clean-up work uncovered a battered, rusted, and broken old safe containing a glass jug inside which was 400 millilitres of plutonium [New Scientist].

Toshiba Inc. has shaved about $1.4 billion off its price to build two nuclear reactors, but it's unlikely to ever reach an amount within San Antonio's price range, NRG Energy executives said Thursday. "We would expect ... the price estimate that Toshiba will come back with may be outside the affordability range for their ratepayers," Steve Winn, CEO of the NRG-owned Nuclear Innovation North America, said at a financial analysts' meeting in Houston. At issue is the cost San Antonio's CPS Energy and NRG Energy are willing to pay contractor Toshiba to build two nuclear reactors outside Bay City. CPS Energy has promised ratepayers and the City Council that it will pursue the deal as long as it can limit power bill increases to 5 percent every other year for the next decade. This can be done if the total project, with financing, will cost about $13 billion, utility officials say. To hit that amount, Toshiba's costs need to come in about $8 billion. But the Japanese contractor, NRG confirmed, estimated its price at $12.3 billion in October.

Toshiba Inc. has shaved about $1.4 billion off its price to build two nuclear reactors, but it's unlikely to ever reach an amount within San Antonio's price range, NRG Energy executives said Thursday. "We would expect ... the price estimate that Toshiba will come back with may be outside the affordability range for their ratepayers," Steve Winn, CEO of the NRG-owned Nuclear Innovation North America, said at a financial analysts' meeting in Houston. At issue is the cost San Antonio's CPS Energy and NRG Energy are willing to pay contractor Toshiba to build two nuclear reactors outside Bay City. CPS Energy has promised ratepayers and the City Council that it will pursue the deal as long as it can limit power bill increases to 5 percent every other year for the next decade. This can be done if the total project, with financing, will cost about $13 billion, utility officials say. To hit that amount, Toshiba's costs need to come in about $8 billion. But the Japanese contractor, NRG confirmed, estimated its price at $12.3 billion in October.

The Department of Energy needs to improve oversight after a contractor at Hanford was allowed to approve federal funding on behalf of DOE for its own contract, according to an audit by the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General. The audit also said that in some cases the contractor was allowed to prepare statements of work, which established DOE's requirement for work to be performed under its contract. The DOE Hanford Office of River Protection, or ORP, already has made some changes after recognizing that oversight of Project Assistance Corp. was weak before the Office of Inspector General began its investigation. DOE issued a blanket purchase agreement to Project Assistance Corp. in 2003 for project management, risk assessment, program assessment, quality assurance, safety, cost and schedule estimating, budgeting and finance, and engineering. Annual costs of the contract have increased from $4.7 million in 2005 to $9.2 million in 2008.

A private company was being paid $300 million by the federal government to clean up radioactive waste at two abandoned Cold War plants in Tennessee when an ironworker crashed through a rotted floor. That prompted a major safety review, which ended up forcing work to an abrupt halt, and the project was shut down for months. The delay and a host of other problems caused cost estimates to rise, eventually hitting $781 million. Now, President Obama's stimulus package is opening a bountiful stream of new funding, and the same contractor, Bechtel Jacobs, is slated to get $118 million to help complete the job.

Contractors at one of the nation's major nuclear weapons complexes repeatedly used substandard construction materials and components that could've caused a major radioactive spill, a recently completed internal government probe has found. One of the materials used at the Savannah River Site on the South Carolina-Georgia border failed to meet federal safety standards and "could have resulted in a spill of up to 15,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste," the Energy Department's inspector general found. The inspector general's five-month investigation also found that contractors bought 9,500 tons of substandard steel reinforcing bars for the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. The faulty steel was discovered after a piece of it broke during the construction of a facility to convert spent nuclear weapons-grade plutonium and uranium into mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel for civilian reactors. Replacing 14 tons of substandard rebar -- the steel bars commonly used to reinforce concrete -- that already had been installed cost $680,000 and delayed the completion of the $4.8 billion MOX facility, the investigation found.

Department of Energy Manager Gerald Boyd said it's "sort of doubtful" that Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup manager in Oak Ridge, will complete the demolition of K-25 by the end 2011 - when the company's contract is due to expire - and federal officials are starting to make other plans. Last year, DOE extended and modified the BJC contract, valued at $1.48 billion, to allow the contractor to finish work on the mile-long and massively contaminated building that once processed uranium for the nation's Cold War arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Department of Energy Manager Gerald Boyd said it's "sort of doubtful" that Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup manager in Oak Ridge, will complete the demolition of K-25 by the end 2011 - when the company's contract is due to expire - and federal officials are starting to make other plans. Last year, DOE extended and modified the BJC contract, valued at $1.48 billion, to allow the contractor to finish work on the mile-long and massively contaminated building that once processed uranium for the nation's Cold War arsenal of nuclear weapons.

More than $1.2 billion awarded to firms on watchdog's list President Obama and members of Congress told federal agencies earlier this year to avoid awarding funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to contractors with troubled histories of work for the federal government. But that isn't happening at numerous agencies, a Washington Post analysis shows. So far, 33 federal departments and agencies have awarded more than $1.2 billion in stimulus contracts to at least 30 companies that are ranked by one watchdog group as among the most egregious offenders of state and federal laws.

More than $1.2 billion awarded to firms on watchdog's list President Obama and members of Congress told federal agencies earlier this year to avoid awarding funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to contractors with troubled histories of work for the federal government. But that isn't happening at numerous agencies, a Washington Post analysis shows. So far, 33 federal departments and agencies have awarded more than $1.2 billion in stimulus contracts to at least 30 companies that are ranked by one watchdog group as among the most egregious offenders of state and federal laws.

TVA contractor Stone & Webster Construction Inc. has paid $6.2 million to the federal government to settle a contract fraud complaint, U.S. Attorney James Dedrick said Thursday. The settlement follows the TVA Office of Inspector General's investigation of alleged false claims involving Stone & Webster's billion-dollar plus contract to service TVA nuclear plants in East Tennessee and Alabama, according to a press release.

Did you know that the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) was enacted to provide compensation and medical benefits to employees who worked at certain Department of Energy (DOE) facilities, including contractors and subcontractors at those locations, and certain of its vendors? During the Cold War, workers employed in the nation's atomic weapons program or other programs may have been exposed to radioactive and toxic substances. As a result, the EEOICPA is intended to benefits to eligible employees and former employees of the U.S. DOE, its contractors and subcontractors, or to certain survivors of such individuals.

The City of Ottawa has hired a nuclear sleuth to determine why biosolids from the municipal sewage treatment plant are radioactive. Biosolids are what's left over after water is separated out of sewage. The manure-like substance from the city's plant is shipped to four locations through a contractor, and it is used for various purposes, mostly to make compost. One of the recipients of the biosolids from the Robert O. Pickard Environmental Centre near Greens Creek is an outfit in upstate New York. Last Thursday, three loads were sent from Ottawa, but testing for radioactivity at the U.S. border detected higher-than-acceptable levels in two of the loads. The loads weren't allowed into the U.S., and the contractor took them back to its Iroquois, Ont., base, where they are quarantined.

Nuclear power stations are increasingly seen as the answer to the UK's looming energy shortfall, and contractors are already looking at the construction opportunities available. Carol Millett reports.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region III office in Lisle, Ill., activated its Incident Response Center today to monitor an unusual event declared at the Monticello Nuclear Power Plant. The plant, operated by Xcel Energy, is located in Monticello, Minn. The unusual event was declared at 10:30 a.m. when a contractor struck a power line, which resulted in a loss of power to non-safety equipment. The contractor was taken to an area hospital and pronounced dead, according to local authorities. The loss of power affected equipment necessary to provide cooling water to the reactor. Around 11:30 a.m. the plant restored the equipment necessary to provide cooling water support to the reactor in a shutdown condition.