The US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a contract worth about $1.5bn to Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership to continue deactivation and remediation of the Paducah nuclear site.
Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership is a CH2M-led company with partners Fluor and BWX Technologies.
The deal requires the company to deactivate and remediate Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant facilities in Paducah, Kentucky.
Standing on a 3,500-acre land, the Paducah plant is located approximately eight miles west of Paducah and 3.5 miles south of the Ohio River.
Built in the 1950s, the DEO-owned PGDP served as a nuclear weapons complex. It had processed uranium for nuclear weapons, military reactors, and nuclear power plant fuels from 1952 to 2013.
For about 20 years between 1993 and 2013, PGDP was leased for conducting gaseous diffusion operations by the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC).
Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership will undertake management of more than 650 structures, properties, and buildings under the D&R contract.
Also, it will take up the task to streamline surveillance and maintenance costs for both short and long terms to enable further stabilization, deactivation and remediation activities, decreasing risk and demolition costs in the future.
A statement from DOE in this regard read: “The mission of the DOE Environmental Management program is the safe cleanup of the environmental legacy resulting from five decades of nuclear weapons development and Government-sponsored nuclear energy research.”
The contract will be based on performance and is for a 10-year period in total. According to CH2M, the base term of the contract is five years and is valued at around $750m.
It is followed by three-year and two-year option periods with a combined total of nearly $750m. CH2M said that the transition period is slated to begin from next month.