Oak Ridge Today

ORAU wins $6.5 million contract from Pennsylvania Department of Health

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Oak Ridge Associated Universities Building MC-100

Oak Ridge Associated Universities has won a five-year, $6.5 million contract from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Health to manage peer and performance reviews. (Photo courtesy ORAU)

Oak Ridge Associated Universities has won a five-year, $6.5 million contract from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Health to manage peer and performance reviews.

As part of this contract, ORAU will assist the Department of Health in meeting its mission to fund Pennsylvania research organizations to conduct biomedical, clinical, and health services research projects using peer review as part of the grant selection process and performance reviews to assess ongoing and completed grants. [Read more…]

Udall, Alexander reintroduce plan for independent panel to help Cold War nuclear workers

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U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander

Lamar Alexander

Mark Udall

Mark Udall

U.S. senators Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, and Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, on Thursday reintroduced a bipartisan plan to create an independent advisory panel to help Cold War workers from Oak Ridge and other nuclear weapons facilities get the help they need to treat cancer and other illnesses they developed as a result of exposure to radiation, a press release said.

“The panel would oversee the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, which has been plagued by procedural inconsistencies and delays, preventing former nuclear workers from accessing the benefits they are owed,” the release said.

It said about 600,000 workers were unknowingly exposed to radioactive and toxic substances while employed at U.S. atomic weapons program facilities during the Cold War era. Because of this exposure, thousands of Americans now have developed debilitating—and often terminal—diseases. [Read more…]

Holocaust survivor to speak at DOE women’s program

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Arthur Pais

Arthur Pais

Holocaust survivor Arthur Pais will speak at a program sponsored by federal workers in Oak Ridge next week.

The free Aug. 8 program is open to the public. It’s co-sponsored by the Oak Ridge Federal Women’s Program, or FWP, and the Federally Employed Women Oak Ridge Chapter.

It’s scheduled from 10:30-11:30 a.m. Aug. 8 at the American Museum of Science and Energy at 300 South Tulane Ave. in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

Y-12 protester temporarily released for funeral; officials don’t comment on whether she returned to prison

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Megan Rice and Michele Naar-Obed

Megan Rice, left, was convicted on two federal charges in May after breaking into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012, and vandalizing a uranium storage building with two other protesters. She was temporarily released last week to attend her brother-in-law’s funeral. Rice is pictured above outside U.S. District Court in Knoxville with Michele Naar-Obed, wife of one of the other protesters, Greg Boertje-Obed.

U.S. and Georgia officials did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday and Wednesday on whether peace protester Megan Rice, who has been convicted of destroying government property at the Y-12 National Security Complex, returned to prison in the Peach State this week after a five-day release to attend the funeral of her brother-in-law in New York.

But on Tuesday, Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, said he assumed Rice had returned to the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga.

“I assume she reported, or we’d have heard from someone trying to locate her,” Hutchison said in a Tuesday evening e-mail. “I know she was returning to Atlanta last night en route to Ocilla. That’s the last I heard.” [Read more…]

Nazarewicz, Sumpter, Wullschleger named UT-Battelle Corporate Fellows

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UT-Battelle Corporate Fellows

From left are Witold Nazarewicz, Bobby Sumpter, and Stan Wullschleger. (Photo courtesy Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Witold Nazarewicz, Bobby Sumpter, and Stan Wullschleger of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been selected as 2013 UT-Battelle Corporate Fellows.

The rank of corporate fellow—among the lab’s highest honors—recognizes the researchers’ significant accomplishments and continuing leadership in their scientific, engineering, and technological fields. The addition of Nazarewicz, Sumpter and Wullschleger brings the number of active corporate fellows at ORNL to 33 researchers. [Read more…]

ORNL’s Croft elected fellow of the Institute of Physics

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Stephen Croft

Stephen Croft

Stephen Croft of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been elected fellow of the Institute of Physics.

He was selected for his achievements in physics and outstanding contributions to the physics profession.

Croft works in ORNL’s Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division. [Read more…]

Picture: Rep. Jim Cooper tours ORNL

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U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper Visits ORNL

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason, left, and Johnny Moore, center, site office manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, escort U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democrat from Tennessee’s Fifth District, on a tour of ORNL. (ORNL/Genevieve Martin)

U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Nashville Democrat from Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District, toured Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Saturday.

Cooper was joined by his Chief of Staff Lisa Quigley as well as Helen Hardin. The group also spent time at the Y-12 National Security Complex before visiting the laboratory.

While at the lab, ORNL Director Thom Mason and Johnny Moore, site office manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, escorted the congressman on a driving tour of campus followed by a tour of the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source. They later joined ORNL Associate Lab Director for Global Security Brent Park for discussions on the lab’s national security programs, the lab said in a statement. [Read more…]

ETTP water tower to be demolished in August

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ETTP Water Tower

The water tower, the tallest structure at the East Tennessee Technology Park, will be demolished in early August. It’s been part of the skyline at the former K-25 site for more than 50 years. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge Office)

The water tower, the tallest structure at the East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge, will be demolished in early August, officials said.

The checkerboard water tower has been part of the skyline at ETTP, the former K-25 site, for more than 50 years.

The 382-foot-tall structure is officially called the K-1206-F Fire Water Tower, and it has a capacity of 400,000 gallons. It serviced the site’s fire protection system until a few weeks ago. The structure has become deteriorated over the years, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office said in the August issue of “Public Involvement News.”

“The tower will be brought down through a controlled explosive demolition by UCOR and its subcontracting partners—Veterans Contracting Solutions LLC and Controlled Demolition Inc.,” DOE said. [Read more…]

DOE prepares to ‘recompete’ TRU Waste Processing Center contract

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Transuranic Waste Processing Center

The Transuranic Waste Processing Center is in west Oak Ridge, south of Bethel Valley Road off Highway 95. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge Office)

The U.S. Department of Energy is preparing to “recompete” the contract to manage the Transuranic Waste Processing Center off Highway 95 in west Oak Ridge.

The facility is currently managed by a contractor, Wastren Advantage Inc., and the work is overseen by officials at DOE’s Oak Ridge Office.

DOE has issued a “sources sought notice” to begin performing market research to gauge whether there are small businesses capable of performing the work, the Oak Ridge Office said in the August issue of “Public Involvement News.” [Read more…]

NNSA: Two Y-12 security police officers injured in accidental discharge of firearm

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Y-12 National Security Complex Aerial View

Two security police officers received minor injuries this past evening when a firearm accidentally discharged at the Y-12 National Security Complex, pictured above. (Submitted photo)

Two security police officers received minor injuries as a result of an accidental discharge of a firearm at the Y-12 National Security Complex last evening, a federal spokesman said Sunday.

The two employees received first aid on site and were taken to Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge, where they were treated and released, said Steven Wyatt, public affairs manager for the National Nuclear Security Administration Production Office at Y-12. [Read more…]

Picture: NNSA’s acting administrator visits ORNL

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Bruce Held Visits ORNL

From left are Brent Park, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s associate laboratory director of global security; Johnny Moore, the U.S. Department of Energy’s site office manager at ORNL; Bruce Held, acting under secretary for nuclear security and administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration; and ORNL director Thom Mason in the lobby of Building 5300 at ORNL. (Photo by ORNL’s Jason Richards)

Bruce Held, acting under secretary for nuclear security and administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, visited Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Thursday for a brief discussion with ORNL Director Thom Mason; Johnny Moore, the U.S. Department of Energy’s site office manager at ORNL; and Brent Park, ORNL’s associate laboratory director of global security.

Picture: Acting NNSA administrator visits Y-12 National Security Complex

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Bruce Held Visits Y-12

Bruce Held, center, acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration and acting undersecretary for nuclear security, is pictured above at the Y-12 National Security Complex with NNSA Production Office Manager Steve Erhart, left, and Captain Geoffrey deBeauclair, Held’s military aide. (Submitted photo)

Bruce Held, the acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration and acting undersecretary for nuclear security, visited the Y-12 National Security Complex on Thursday.

Held toured the site and conducted an “all hands” meeting at the site’s New Hope Center to talk to federal and contractor employees.

Held is a retired clandestine operations officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, a former national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, former counterintelligence chief at Sandia National Laboratories, and former director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. [Read more…]