S&K Logistics, a tribally-owned government contractor, has won a potential three-year, $24-million award for support services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for professional services, ranging from liquid waste cleanup to legal support, at Savannah River runs from Dec. 12, 2023 through Dec. 11, 2026, according to the Monday announcement from DOE. The contract includes work for both the DOE Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
S&K is owned by the Salish and Kootenai tribes and has offices in Montana, Colorado and Georgia, according to its website. S&K has worked on DOE Environmental Management projects including the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings project in Utah as well as the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has inked a three-year cyber security and information technology contract, potentially worth up to $24 million, with a company based out of Oklahoma City, according to a Thursday press release.
The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract with DNI Emerging Technologies starts Dec. 14 and runs through Dec. 13, 2026. DNI is part of Delaware Nation Industries, a tribal-owned government contractor that has done work with various branches of the U.S. military as well as the Department of State, according to the DNI website.
DNI will perform cyber and information technology work at Savannah River for both the DOE Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Kairos Power this week won U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval for a permit to build a 35-megawatt thermal reactor in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
The Hermes test reactor will provide something of a trial run for a larger, commercial version of the molten-salt-cooled reactor. Kairos must file another application with the federal regulator to actually operate the test version of the advanced reactor.
The test reactor will be developed on land once used by the Department of Energy for the Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plant. “Kairos Power is thrilled to have achieved this major regulatory milestone as we make final preparations to start construction at the Hermes site next year,” Mike Laufer, the co-founder and CEO of California-based Kairos said in a Tuesday press release.
Several work crews at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory were told to stay home Thursday evening due to snow, according to a notice on the lab’s website.
Los Alamos Public Schools were closed Thursday due to snow but expected to resume classes on Friday, according to the Los Alamos Reporter newspaper.
The Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission both made what Sen. Jodi Ernst’s (R-Iowa) calls her “naughty list” of agencies with lower than a 50% rate of in-person office attendance.
DOE has a roughly 20% occupancy in its Forrestal Building headquarters in downtown Washington while the NRC had a roughly 30% occupancy rate at its primary headquarters buildings in Rockville, Md., 1 White Flint North and 2 White Flint North. The averages were derived from one-week samples taken during the three-month period spanning January through March 2023.
Ernst’s list was derived from a survey by the Government Accountability Office, which surveyed the 24 federal agencies in the Chief Financial Officers Act, a financial reform for government agencies passed during the George H.W. Bush Administration. Ernst says federal agencies should increase in-person attendance or sell off the unused office space.
Rick Lopez will formally take the oath of office as the new mayor of Carlsbad, N.M., on Jan. 2 at the Janell Whitlock Municipal Annex, according to a Dec. 10 post on the city’s website.
Lopez is the retired fire chief for the New Mexico city about 26 miles northeast by road from the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant: the nation’s only deep-underground disposal site for transuranic waste.
Newly-elected members of Carlsbad City Council will also be sworn in during the ceremony, according to the announcement from current Mayor Dale Janway on the city’s website. Janway has been mayor since March 2010 and did not seek re-election. According to election results posted online by the New Mexico secretary of state, Lopez won 1,608 votes, defeating Edward Rodriguez, who garnered 1,326, as well as three other candidates who each received less than 200 votes.
Jennifer Chandler, village administrator for Piketon, Ohio, home of the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site, has started a new job as senior project manager for Tetra Tech.
Chandler, who has been active on numerous local nuclear issues, posted the news this week on her LinkedIn profile. She is working out of the company’s Cincinnati office.
