Feds, contractors, others still face 2024 to-do lists

Before government types and contractors around the Department of Energy complex clear out for the winter holidays, many still have items to check off their 2024 to-do lists.

Here are a few:

Dec. 19: Was the deadline for responses to an Office of Environmental Management request for information on Deactivation and Remediation work at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. At this stage, it’s just market research, not a draft solicitation. The current business is held by Jacobs-led Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership. Earlier this year, Jacobs government contracting business combined with Amentum.

Dec. 20: Is the deadline for congress to pass another stopgap funding measure to avoid a pre-holiday government shutdown.

Dec. 30: Is the deadline for DOE’s nuclear cleanup office to inform the New Mexico Environment Department what steps, if any, are underway to investigate out-of-state locations that might succeed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad as a repository for transuranic waste. It is one of the provisions in WIPP’s latest 10-year state permit. The report was not ready for publication as of Wednesday, a DOE spokesperson said.

Dec. 30: Is also the target for a panel of experts, led by onetime Environmental Management head  Inés Triay, to publicly release their report on addressing the longstanding hexavalent chromium plume at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. A DOE spokesperson said last week the report was still undergoing internal review.

TBD: Managers at DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state said around Thanksgiving the agency was weeks away from feeding a chemical simulant, designed to imitate radioactive waste, into Direct-feed Low-Activity Waste Facilities at the vitrification plant built by Bechtel National. This is part of cold commissioning at the Waste Treatment and Plant. A spokesperson said this  week it was not happening yet.

TBD: While there is no fixed deadline, the Environmental Management office could issue a notice to proceed with transition to the winner of a new cleanup contract at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York. At the end of October, the DOE cleanup office announced an award for the potential $3-billion contract to West Valley Cleanup Alliance. The Alliance is a team made up of partners BWX Technologies, Jacobs Technology and Geosyntec Consultant. No bid protest was filed and BWXT, for its part, announced the contract award this month. No green light has been issued yet, a DOE spokesperson said, adding it could occur in the first quarter of 2025.