Anne Smith, who previously held public affairs roles with Safety and Ecology Corp., Perma-Fix Environmental and URS/CH2M Oak Ridge, has been named the communications chief at North Wind Group.
North Wind is a small business on the rise, recently taking over management of the Department of Energy’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge. The company is based in Idaho Falls. Smith will be located in the company’s Knoxville office. Continue reading
This Feb. 8 photo of the entrance sign at DOE’s Transuranic Waste Processing Facility reflects the recent change of contractors to North Wind Solutions. In the administration’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2017, one of the Department of Energy’s environmental management priorities in Oak Ridge is to continue processing of high-hazard tranuranic waste and prepare it for eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. (KNS/Munger photo)
The funding request for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge cleanup program in Fiscal Year 2017 is set at $391.4 million, according to Mike Koentop, executive officer of DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management. Continue reading
North Wind Solutions, a small business that’s made a splash on the Oak Ridge scene by winning the management contract for the Department of Energy’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center, is getting more work under another DOE contract North Wind received last year for support services.
DOE announced Tuesday that North Wind had received a new task order with a value of $1.4 million over three years for work to be performed at the agency’s West Valley (N.Y.) Demonstration Project.
Oak Ridge workers move one of the newly designed storage containers for highly radioactive materials. (DOE photo)
As noted in an earlier post, the Department of Energy has to come up hundreds of the special containers to store remote-handled transuranic wastes that have been processed at the agency’s Oak Ridge facility. The containers are needed because the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is shut down, and it’s not clear when the underground waste repository will resume operations.
The containers are called “remote-handled overpacks” or ROPs, according to Mike Koentop, executive officer of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. They are supposed to hold the hot waste materials and protect workers from hazardous doses of radiation. Koentop said the former contractor (Wastren Advantage) at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center worked on the design for the first-of-a-kind containers, and three companies in Tennessee, Colorado, and Idaho are involved in manufacturing them. Continue reading
The Department of Energy’s new contractor at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center — where the nastiest wastes in the Oak Ridge stockpile are processed and prepared for disposal — will face a number of challenges in carrying out that work.
North Wind Solutions LLC officially took over responsibility for the TWPC on Friday, replacing Wastren Advantage.
DOE’s Office of Environmental Management wants the Oak Ridge plant to continue processing the radioactive wastes even though the nation’s disposal facility for long-lived radioactive materials — the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico — has been shut down since February 2014 because of a fire in the underground repository and multiple safety concerns. Continue reading
The Department of Energy’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center is located on the west end of the Oak Ridge reservation, off Highway 95 near White Oak Lake. (Munger photo)
The transition of contractors at the Department of Energy’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge is supposed to take place officially at 6 a.m. on Friday, according to Sue Cange, DOE’s cleanup manager in Oak Ridge.
Cange and Mark Whitney, DOE’s principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management, were among the officials expected to gather Wednesday morning at the TWPC to recognize the years of work done by the outgoing contractor — Wastren Advantage Inc. — and welcome the new contractor, North Wind Solutions. Continue reading
The Department of Energy’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center is located off Highway 95 on the southwest part of the government’s Oak Ridge reservation.
As there prepares to be a change of contractors at the Department of Energy’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center, I checked with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to see if there were any outstanding issues regarding the operating permits at the radioactive waste facility.
Based on those reports, it doesn’t look like the outgoing contractor, Wastren Advantage Inc., which has managed the TWPC for the past five years, is leaving behind any environmental problems. The management transition to North Wind Solutions, which has supported work at the site under WAI, is scheduled to begin Monday and take about 45 days to complete. Continue reading
Nearly four months after initially awarding a $123.9 million management contract, the Department of Energy is proceeding with the change of contractors at the agency’s nuclear waste processing center in Oak Ridge.
North Wind Solutions LLC, a small business headquartered in Idaho Falls, Idaho, was originally declared the winner of the contract competition in mid-June. However, three of the losing bidders protested the federal award, thus delaying the transition of contractors. Continue reading
The Transuranic Waste Processing Center is located on Highway 95 near the western edge of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge reservation. (DOE photo)
After two protests were withdrawn and another one dismissed, the U.S. Department of Energy is moving ahead with a $123.9 million contract awarded earlier this year to North Wind Solutions LLC. The contract is for management and operation of DOE’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge.
The contract has a three-year base and a two-year options, with the maximum valued based on all options being included. Continue reading
There is still no word on the outcome of protests filed on the contract award for management of the Department of Energy’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center. Three losing bidders filed appeals with the Government Accountability Office following the June award of the $123.9 million contract to North Wind Solutions LLC.
Ben Williams, a spokesman for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management in Oak Ridge, said the federal agency anticipates some resolution on the contract appeals by mid-October. He noted that the current management contract with Wastren Advantage has been extended until Oct. 18 to give time for the appeals process to work. That should allow adequate time for the GAO decision, Williams said. Continue reading
North Wind Solutions Inc. was named the winner of a support services contract under the Department of Energy’s environmental management program. The award is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract with a maximum value of $15 million over a five-year ordering period. Continue reading
Three losing bidders have filed protests on the contract award for managing the Department of Energy’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge.
The contract, with a potential value of $123.9 million, was awarded last month to North Wind Solutions LLC. According the Government Accountability Office website, the protests were filed by Aerostar Perma-Fix TRU Services LLC (July 6); Omega Technical Services Inc. (July 7) and ARS EnergX LLC (July 13). Continue reading
As reported earlier, the Department of Energy has awarded a contract (with a potential value of $123.9M) to North Wind Solutions LLC for management of DOE’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge.
Lynette Chafin of DOE’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center said the federal agency anticipates that North Wind will begin management of TWPC by the end of August. Continue reading