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The financial compensation of top contractor executives in Oak Ridge, recently revealed as part of the Recovery Act reporting requirements, created a buzz of attention (Who's making the big bucks in Oak Ridge?). It also prompted questions from readers about how much the federal counterparts earn at the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration: Below are some of the FY09 salaries for top execs at DOE and NNSA in Oak Ridge, including any performance bonuses received for 2008. Bonus info for '09 is not yet available. Here's the compensation for members of the Senior Executive Service at the NNSA's site office at Y-12 Ted Sherry -- YSO Manager -- $192,541 Kevin Smith -- YSO Deputy Manager -- $167,052. Here's the compensation for top officers at DOE's Oak Ridge Operations:

The financial compensation of top contractor executives in Oak Ridge, recently revealed as part of the Recovery Act reporting requirements, created a buzz of attention (Who's making the big bucks in Oak Ridge?). It also prompted questions from readers about how much the federal counterparts earn at the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration: Below are some of the FY09 salaries for top execs at DOE and NNSA in Oak Ridge, including any performance bonuses received for 2008. Bonus info for '09 is not yet available. Here's the compensation for members of the Senior Executive Service at the NNSA's site office at Y-12 Ted Sherry -- YSO Manager -- $192,541 Kevin Smith -- YSO Deputy Manager -- $167,052. Here's the compensation for top officers at DOE's Oak Ridge Operations:

I've written on multiple occasions about the projects underway, with much of the money coming from the Recovery Act, to expand the Department of Energy's nuclear landfill in Oak Ridge. Less attention, however, has been given to the work to expand the sanitary landfills on Chestnut Ridge not far from the Y-12 National Security Complex. According to Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental manager in Oak Ridge, a request for proposals (RFP) is to be issued by the end of December, seeking bids for the landfill expansion and related projects. Dennis Hill, a spokesman for BJC, said there are three active landfills on Chestnut Ridge -- Landfiill IV (industrial waste); V (sanitary waste) and VII (construction/demolition waste)

I've written on multiple occasions about the projects underway, with much of the money coming from the Recovery Act, to expand the Department of Energy's nuclear landfill in Oak Ridge. Less attention, however, has been given to the work to expand the sanitary landfills on Chestnut Ridge not far from the Y-12 National Security Complex. According to Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental manager in Oak Ridge, a request for proposals (RFP) is to be issued by the end of December, seeking bids for the landfill expansion and related projects. Dennis Hill, a spokesman for BJC, said there are three active landfills on Chestnut Ridge -- Landfiill IV (industrial waste); V (sanitary waste) and VII (construction/demolition waste)

Gerald Boyd, the Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge manager, spoke at a safety meeting a couple of months ago, and he made a comment that Oak Ridge likely has a bigger base of contractors and subcontractors than other other DOE site in the country. I don't know whether that's the case, and Boyd acknowledged that he didn't know it for sure. But it makes sense, given the diversity of operations in Oak Ridge and the scale of the work taking place.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina is using a wealth of Recovery Act funding to accelerate cleanup activities and reduce its Cold War stockpile of radioactive waste. Some of that waste, containing radioactive tritium and other contaminants, is coming to Oak Ridge for treatment and packaging before being shipped west to Nevada or Utah for disposal. Two local facilities owned by Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. - Diversified Scientific Services Inc. near Kingston and Materials & Energy Corp. in Oak Ridge - have been hired to treat the so-called mixed waste, which contains both radioactive elements and hazardous chemicals.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina is using a wealth of Recovery Act funding to accelerate cleanup activities and reduce its Cold War stockpile of radioactive waste. Some of that waste, containing radioactive tritium and other contaminants, is coming to Oak Ridge for treatment and packaging before being shipped west to Nevada or Utah for disposal. Two local facilities owned by Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. - Diversified Scientific Services Inc. near Kingston and Materials & Energy Corp. in Oak Ridge - have been hired to treat the so-called mixed waste, which contains both radioactive elements and hazardous chemicals.

The Department of Energy has given early approval to a potentially multibillion-dollar cleanup program that could change the face of its nuclear weapons plant and national science laboratory at Oak Ridge. The plan calls for demolition of more than 400 buildings at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 nuclear weapons plant over thenext 20-plus years. More than 5 million square feet of structures would be torn down, some dating to Oak Ridge's secret-city founding in World War II. Advertisement The program also would fix polluted groundwater on the sites - which make up a 33,000-acre reservation, about 20 miles west of Knoxville - and reduce environmental damage there after 60 years of nuclear operations. But it won't be cheap. DOE-Oak Ridge spokesman John Shewairy said last week that estimates range from $9.4 billion to $14.5 billion.

"The Dept. of Energy didn't have any immediate comment on the City of Oak Ridge's request that the next cleanup contract include a provision that requires the top managers with the contractor and major subcontractors live in Oak Ridge. The request was made in the city's comments submitted for the draft Request for Proposals. "I can't talk to anything related to the procurement at this point," John Shewairy, DOE's chief spokesman in Oak Ridge, said via e-mail. If the issue is addressed at the end of the comment period, Shewairy said he might comment then. Meanwhile, Bechtel Jacobs Co. DOE's cleanup contractor in Oak Ridge since 1998, didn't care to comment on where its executives live."

"Despite its new international business strategy that halts plans to import foreign waste for burial, EnergySolutions will continue processing radioactive waste from other countries at its Bear Creek facility in Oak Ridge, a spokesman confirmed today. "Currently we process waste in Oak Ridge and then send all the waste back to the country of origin and will continue to do so," Mark Walker of EnergySolutions said by e-mail. I'm seeking clarification on Walker's comments about sending all of the waste back to the country of origin, because it was my understanding that much of the radioactively contaminated metals that EnergySolutions processed at Oak Ridge was smelted and formed into blocks used for shielding at nuclear facilities -- such as the Spallation Neutron Source at ORNL."

John Shewairy of DOE's Oak Ridge office said nobody knows how much money might be coming to Oak Ridge to support an accelerated cleanup plan or how many jobs would be created if it's included in an economic stimulus package. On Friday, however, DOE's Oak Ridge manager Gerald Boyd reportedly told an ETEC (East Tennessee Economic Council) audience that the job figure could be as high as 1,000 this year if the best case funding scenario came to be.

According to EnergX exec Tony Buhl, the Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge has processed and packaged about 15 cubic meters of remote-handled transuranic waste and is awaiting approval to send it to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Buhl said reviews have been completed and that Oak Ridge officials are waiting on a shipping schedule from DOE's Carlsbad Office. "It's going to be in the next month," he said Wednesday. "I'm quite confident of that." EnergX is operating contractor at the DOE waste facility. The RH TRU waste is the hottest stuff in the Oak Ridge waste portfolio.

And that doesn't include the weapons work, according to the overall numbers released today by the Dept. of Energy. The Oak Ridge budget numbers released this afternoon show Science going up (from $635 million in 08 and $797 million this year to $836 million in 2010. That doesn't include the stimulus money for Science in Oak Ridge, which is an additional $141 million. The big drop occurred in Environmental Management, which showed a decline from $525 million this year to a proposed $431 in 2010. But, of course, the ARRA money for EM Oak Ridge is set at $825 million. Nuclear nonproliferation funding is scheduled to go to $204 million, compared to current spending at $184 million.

Oak Ridge will receive $755 million in stimulus money to jump-start environmental cleanup projects and create about 1,500 new jobs, the Department of Energy announced today. Gerald Boyd, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge manager, said the money will be spent over the next two and a half years for dozens of projects at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Y-12 National Security Complex, and the East Tennessee Technology Park.

"The Environmental Protection Agency is setting the stage for upcoming negotiations with a strong message to the Department of Energy: Don't let the focus on demolition of old buildings in Oak Ridge stall or deter efforts to reduce pollution in the environment. "EPA is concerned that DOE . . . is placing too much emphasis on building demolition activities in lieu of contaminated environmental media cleanup," EPA's Franklin E. Hill wrote in a Feb. 9 letter to DOE's Oak Ridge office. "Significant levels of contamination in environmental media continue to migrate uncontrolled in groundwater and surface water, and in some cases beyond the boundaries of the ORR (Oak Ridge Reservation). This is viewed as a significant risk and should be addressed earlier than what DOE . . has recently indicated.""

"EnergySolutions announced today that it plans to relocate the Government Group operations to Oak Ridge, basically making Tennessee's Atomic City the headquarters for the company's work for the federal government. That's pretty interesting. I asked for more details and got a few, but there are still plenty of questions. Is the Dept. of Energy pressuring EnergySolutions for more of an Oak Ridge presence because of the troubled Isotek Services project (a partnership headed by EnergySolutions) with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars at stake? Is EnergySolutions growing weary of its critics in Utah, perhaps thinking Oak Ridge is friendlier to its nuclear agenda?"

$35 million project is underway that will expand the capacity of the Department of Energy's nuclear landfill to 1.7 million cubic yards, but that won't come close to meeting future disposal needs in Oak Ridge. Hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funding is being used to accelerate cleanup projects -- including demolition of old nuclear facilities at Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- and that's generating massive amounts of low-level radioactive waste. That's prompting serious talk about expanding the current facility to its maximum limit, 2.2 million cubic yards, and the likely need for a new Oak Ridge landfill. Both of those actions will require the approval of the state of Tennessee and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Perma-Fix Environmental has received the go-ahead to resume shipments of radioactive waste to the Nevada Test Site from its M&EC processing facility in Oak Ridge, but a temporary ban on shipments to NTS remains in effect for the company's facilities at Richland, Wash., and Gainesville, Fla. Larry McNamara, the chief operating officer of Perma-Fix, said today an audit last week at the Oak Ridge facility went well and satisified the previous concerns. M&EC was put on suspension following a September incident in which a container of waste leaked and had rad contamination on its exterior.

Disc containing personal info for thousands of DOE employees lost; local workers not at risk OAK RIDGE - Free medical screenings for workers at Oak Ridge and other Department of Energy sites have been put on hold while DOE investigates an incident in which personal information could have been compromised. The department also is establishing a new protocol for handling such data. The incident involved a lost disc containing the personal information for thousands of current and former employees at DOE's Idaho National Laboratory. Local officials emphasized Tuesday that no information involving Oak Ridge workers had been placed at risk.

03.05.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.05.09 Portsmouth Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Piketon, OH 03.05.09 Scoping Mtg.: EIS on Proposed Loan Guarantee for TX Energy, LLC, Industrial Gasification Facility Beaumont, TX 03.11.09 Nevada Test Site/Environmental Management Community Advisory Board Mtg. Las Vegas, NV 03.11.09 Oak Ridge Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Oak Ridge, TN 03.11.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.12.09 Paducah Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Paducah, KY 03.18.09 - 03.19.09 Environmental Management Site Advisory Board Chairs' Mtg. Augusta, GA 03.23.09 - 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Aiken, SC 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.25.09 Northern NM Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Santa Fe, NM 03.31.09 Public Mtg.: Revised Draft EIS on Decommissioning and/or Long-term Stewardship at West Valley Demonstration Project Irving, NY 03.31.09 Idaho National Lab/Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board Mtg.

03.05.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.05.09 Portsmouth Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Piketon, OH 03.05.09 Scoping Mtg.: EIS on Proposed Loan Guarantee for TX Energy, LLC, Industrial Gasification Facility Beaumont, TX 03.11.09 Nevada Test Site/Environmental Management Community Advisory Board Mtg. Las Vegas, NV 03.11.09 Oak Ridge Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Oak Ridge, TN 03.11.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.12.09 Paducah Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Paducah, KY 03.18.09 - 03.19.09 Environmental Management Site Advisory Board Chairs' Mtg. Augusta, GA 03.23.09 - 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Aiken, SC 03.24.09 Savannah River Site Public Tours Aiken, SC 03.25.09 Northern NM Citizens Advisory Board Mtg. Santa Fe, NM 03.31.09 Public Mtg.: Revised Draft EIS on Decommissioning and/or Long-term Stewardship at West Valley Demonstration Project Irving, NY 03.31.09 Idaho National Lab/Environmental Management Citizens Advisory Board Mtg.

Documents indicate there could be nearly 700 truck shipments of remote-handled transuranic waste - the hottest radioactive waste in the Oak Ridge inventory - going to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico over the next few years. However, an Oak Ridge official said Wednesday that figure is too high, and that the actual number will probably be about half of that.

Construction workers at Department of Energy nuclear sites, including Oak Ridge, had a significantly increased rate of cancer deaths, according to a study published recently in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. Oak Ridge, in particular, had an abnormally high number of deaths attributed to non-Hodgkins lymphoma - a type of cancer sometimes linked to radiation exposure. The study, which was funded by DOE as part of a medical surveillance program, looked at death numbers and death causes among 8,976 former construction workers at four DOE sites: Oak Ridge; Hanford, near Richland, Wash.; Savannah River, near Aiken, S.C.; and Amchitka, an Alaskan island once used for nuclear weapons testing. The overall mortality rate of the study group was slightly lower than the U.S. population as a whole, but that's expected when looking at any group of steadily employed workers with access to health care, according to Dr. John Dement, the lead researcher and professor of occupational medicine at Duke University.

Last weekend I came face to face with the promise and pitfalls of nuclear energy. Along with more than a dozen other journalists, I toured the facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory near Knoxville, Tenn. We were part of a conference on nuclear power put on by the University of Tennessee. Tucked into the emerald foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Oak Ridge is home to one of the world's fastest supercomputers, which churn data at the unfathomable speed of a thousand trillion operations per second, called a "petaflop." The computer is used to generate rainbow-hued mockups of Earth and project what it might feel like during global warming. The lab is also home to a particle accelerator that, like a giant indoor racetrack, hurls ions at 86 percent of the speed of light to produce the world's most intense neutron beams. Basically, Oak Ridge is Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory for nerds.