James Biggins, who was already serving as acting general manager of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, now has the job on a permanent basis, according to a recent press release from the agency.
Joel Spangenberg, the executive director of operations for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), said in the release Biggins was elevated to the general manager post on March 28 after serving in an acting role since Jan. 19.
Biggins started filling in as general manager following the December departure of DNFSB’s general manager Glenn Sklar.
Biggins has been with DNFSB since 2015, having served in posts including general counsel and special assistant to the chair. He has also served in legal department roles for the Department of the Navy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, according to the release and Biggins LinkedIn profile.
The DNFSB is an independent agency within the executive branch charged with providing safety advice and recommendations to the secretary of energy on nuclear defense facilities run by the Department of Energy. While the DNFSB has no actual regulatory authority, the secretary of energy is required to publicly respond to recommendations made by the safety board.
The five-member panel has a staff of about 110 people.
Like so many other federal workplaces during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board continues to have most of its staff working from home, according to the agency’s Annual Report to Congress.
“The Board has proven its effectiveness while in maximum telework posture, despite the unexpected challenges of adapting work practices to remote work situations,” according to the report made public late last month by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).
There is no timeline in place to curtail the maximum reliance on telecommuting to inhibit the spread of the coronavirus, according to the report. The administration of President Joe Biden has tweaked the pandemic workplace policy since Jan. 20, DNFSB’s manager of board operations Tara Tadlock said by telephone Monday. Offices are limited to having only 25% of the pre-COVID headcount on-site and DNFSB is below that level, she added.
The independent safety watchdog for the Department of Energy moved most of its staff to remote work in March of 2020. In December the agency conducted its first “virtual open meeting” and plans to hold more of those in the future, according to the annual report.
During 2020, the board’s documents posted online attracted a steady number of eyeballs, with DNFSB correspondence being accessed more than 7,000 times via its public website.
The most popular items were resident inspector weekly reports for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico with 3,144 views, Savannah River Site in South Carolina with 2,875 and the Hanford Site in Washington state with 2,584. While Hanford is strictly a DOE Office of Environmental Management operation, the other two have extensive facilities for both the cleanup office and the DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
The DNFSB was created by Congress in 1988. The agency lacks enforcement power, but provides recommendations and advice to the secretary of energy on public health and safety issues at DOE defense nuclear facilities.
The Department of Energy expects to sign a small firm, Strata-G, to perform regulatory work on short notice connected with cleanup at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
This purchase order is for up to two years and not to exceed $150,000, a DOE spokesperson said Tuesday of the proposed sole source set-aside notice from the agency’s Office of Environmental Management.
“Services will be ordered on an hourly basis, as needed and [the firm] must be available to provide assistance within 24-hour notice” to meet with DOE Environmental Management and its regulators, according to the notice. Knoxville, Tenn.-based Strata-G has much experience and knowledge of the “highly complex projects” on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory site, the DOE said.
Parties seeking to contest the sole-source award must file an interest letter by 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time on April 16 that demonstrates their firm’s ability to provide an equivalent service. The letter should be emailed to contracting official Carol Jennings of DOE at [email protected].
A little more than three years ago, Strata-G won a $1-million contract from DOE to drill wells and sample groundwater and surface water as part of research for a new waste landfill at the Oak Ridge Site.
The former CEO of nuclear services company Orano U.S. is joining the environmental services division at competitor Westinghouse Electric, according to a press release from the company this week.
In his new role, Sam Shakir will lead Westinghouse’s “expansion as a leading services and technology provider in the global commercial and government nuclear decommissioning and management services markets,” according to the company’s Wednesday press release.
Shakir served as head of Paris-based Orano’s U.S. segment from 2016 until this week, when the company announced his resignation in a press release Monday. Fuel services president Amir Vexler is taking his place, Orano said.
Orano’s got a foothold in the nuclear waste management business. Interim Storage Partners, the company’s joint venture with Waste Control Specialists (WCS), is one of just two entities seeking federal approval to build a consolidated interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.
That proposed site, located at WCS’s existing low-level disposal facility in Andrews, Texas, is undergoing a federal environmental impact review slated to wrap up this summer, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
