The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments will investigate the prime contractor of the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., for allowing “an unauthorized bluetooth-enabled electronic device” into an area where such devices are prohibited, according to a letter dated March 22 and published this week on the DOE’s website.
The incident occurred in 2022, according to the letter to Sandia Director James Peery from Anthony Pierpoint, director of the Office of Enforcement at DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments.
On Earth Day, April 21, the Department of Energy will announce which of its federal installations scored best on the agency’s 2023 Sustainable Climate-Ready Sites program.
Twelve DOE properties, mostly weapons complex sites, signed up for the program put together by DOE’s Office of Sustainable Environmental Stewardship, according to a March 29 press release. The program scores the participating DOE properties on 15 categories ranging from air quality and carbon-free electricity to waste minimization and water management.
Sites in the program include: the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; the Nevada National Security Site in Nevada; the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and California; the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C.; and the Y-12 National Security Complex near Oak Ridge, Tenn.
As expected, the Department of Energy said this week it plans to issue a six-month contract extension to Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services for operation of depleted uranium conversion facilities at former gaseous diffusion plants in Kentucky and Ohio.
DOE’s justification for going without competitive bids said the extension would run from April 1 through Sept. 30 of this year. DOE has previously said it planned such an extension. The follow-on contract would include depleted uranium tetrafluoride production for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), according to the latest amended final solicitation for the work.
The NNSA, meanwhile, has already sourced some quantities of high-purity depleted uranium for its own needs, according to its fiscal year 2025 budget request, released in March.
Obituary
Sharon Walker, a longtime hand at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., and later a consultant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, died March 20. She was 75, according to an obituary posted online, which did not identify a cause of death.
Walker started working at Sandia in 1984 as a toxicologist and later became a nuclear safety basis manager and manager for weapons quality and assessment, according to the obituary. She retired 25 years later and consulted up the road at Los Alamos, according to the obituary.
