[en] This article is a discussion of the award of the Environmental Restoration Management contract at the Fernald site. This contract was awarded to a team led by Fluor Daniel and had a value of $2.2B over a five year period, with a three-year option period potentially worth $1.8B. Future competition for the Hanford ERMC award is also discussed

[en] This article is a discussion of the appointment of Leo Duffy as the leader of the US DOE's cleanup of its several nuclear weapons facilities. A professional sketch of Mr. Duffy is provided, and the problems that he will encounter are also outlined

[en] This article is a discussion of DOE's future environmental cleanup efforts in light of anticipated federal budget cuts. There has been a $200M recession in the FY 95 budget and a potential 30% cut in the FY 96 budget of $6.6B. Transfer of many functions of the cleanup effort to the private sector was heavily discussed

[en] Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary kicked off a precedent-setting forum on the future of the US Energy Dept's largest and most environmentally troubled weapon plant site by announcing sweeping management changes and a Clinton administration commitment to new projects there. O'Leary announced changes in traditional contractor and management relationships at Hanford. She claimed these have created massive red tape that has already delayed the estimated $57-billion cleanup of hazardous and radioactive waste stored at the site over the last 50 years. The secretary also announced that starting Oct. 1, all Hanford subcontractors will report to Westinghouse Hanford Co., the overall management and operations contractor. She also outlined new safety initiatives for site wastes stored in 177 underground tanks, many of them badly deteriorated

[en] This article is a review of the funding of current/future (1992 and beyond) US DOE efforts to clean up its several nuclear weapons wastes sites. The discussion centers mainly on the results of a 'decisionmakers' conference held in Amelia Island, Florida in September 1992 to address concerns that the mission is clouded by infighting among key players and the expected departure of Assistant Secretary Leo Duffy

[en] This article is a review of the recent award of the engineering contract at Hanford to a joint venture of Duke Power and J. A. Jones Construction Services. The contract, worth an estimated $500M, is for a three-year period running through September 1995. Impact on the incumbent (ICF Kaiser) work force is expected to be minimal, with the majority of the personnel being retained by Duke/Jones

[en] BNFL Inc. is the US subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels PLC, the UK's government-owned nuclear fuels manufacturer and waste disposal firm. To offset the shrinking British nuclear power market, the UK parent hopes its American offspring can win a big chunk of the domestic market as utilities and the US Dept. of Energy seek new ways to dispose of nuclear waste. BNFL believes it has a better mouse-trap, gained from the parent firm's 40 years in nuclear fuels reprocessing, and showcased in a $2.7-billion, state-of-the-art waste plant in Sellafield, England now waiting final permits. Because is owns, operates, and decommissions its own facilities and must show a profit, BNFL designs for minimum life cycle costs

[en] Two serious safety mishaps in August 1993 at the US Dept. of Energy's Hanford nuclear weapon complex in Washington state have again called the site's cleanup safety management into question. The latest incident, which shut down all nonessential work at Hanford's huge waste tank farm and has already sparked a site management shakeup, came as site officials held a conference at the complex to tout its environmental technology potential. In an unusual move, site management contractor Westinghouse Hanford Co. ordered the work stoppage on Aug. 12. It will affect at least 350 workers. The shutdown came two days after a worker employed by site engineer-contractor Kaiser Engineers Hanford Co. taped a rock to a rope and dropped it into a pipe in a high-level radioactive waste tank to determine if it was plugged. The breach of procedure was aggravated when he held the rock after withdrawing it from the tank, and was contaminated. Just days earlier, a Westinghouse employee accidentally turned on a test pump inserted into Hanford's so-called open-quotes burping tankclose quotes last month to stir and diffuse potentially explosive hydrogen gas. The brief accident did no immediate harm, according to officials

[en] Cleanup of the huge Hanford nuclear weapon site in Washington state, long mired in disputes over contract awards, faces another potential delay. On October 12 the US General Accounting Office upheld a protest to the award of the site's $800-million Environmental Restoration Management Contract (ERMC). GAO has ordered the US DOE to review the contract award to a team led by Bechtel Group Inc., a process observers say could be quick or a quagmire. GAO sustained part of a protest filed in early 1993 by Parsons Environmental Services Inc., Pasadena, California, which led an unsuccessful team bid for the ERMC