Washington Group International (WGI) has won a contract to dismantle and demolish a cluster of buildings and other structures formerly used to support plutonium processing at the US Department of Energy’s (DoE’s) Rocky Flats environmental technology site near Denver, Colorado. Kaiser-Hill Company, which manages the overall cleanup and closure of the 6000-acre site, awarded the $50 million contract to WGI.
The 16-structure cluster including Building 371 and ancillary facilities nearby was originally designed to house the physical and chemical operations for recovering plutonium from both solid and liquid wastes as part of Rocky Flats’ 40-year mission to support the US nuclear weapons programme. That mission ceased with the end of the Cold War and the facilities today are being decontaminated, disassembled and cleaned up. Specific tasks in the contract call for dismantlement of equipment, asbestos abatement, demolition of buildings, decontamination, site restoration and waste packaging.
• Washington TRU Solutions, a subsidiary of WGI based in Carlsbad, New Mexico, has agreed to expanded work scope and financial incentives to accelerate cleanup of transuranic nuclear waste stored around the country at current and former DoE nuclear materials production and research facilities.
WGI’s previous responsibilities at the New Mexico site were focused on operating the nation’s first deep geological nuclear waste repository, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad. The contract modification expands those responsibilities to include nationwide characterisation of transuranic waste and coordination of the national transportation programme to ship those wastes to WIPP. The contract also incorporates new performance incentives for accelerated risk reduction, site clean-up and accelerated waste treatment to prepare waste for disposal in the WIPP repository.
The cost-reimbursable contract is valued at $474.5 million and runs through September 2005 with the potential for up to five additional years.
