The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers anticipates in late April issuing a formal request for proposals for environmental cleanup of the radioactively contaminated Luckey Site in Ohio under its Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).
A draft solicitation went out on Feb. 20 for comments through March 5. The Army Corps this week did not discuss a timeline for award of the new contract.
The award would be a follow-on to the contract held by North Wind Portage for remediation of the property 22 miles southwest of Toledo. The scope of work would remain largely the same, including environmental monitoring; building demolition; excavation; and characterization, packaging, transport, and disposal of contaminated materials.
Portage won the current contract in July 2015 prior to its acquisition in 2017 by North Wind, an environmental services specialist based in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The work is valued at up to $100 million, with a five-year base and a single five-year option period. As of Wednesday, the Army Corps had not exercised the option.
A North Wind spokesperson said by email Thursday the company could not comment on the Army Corps’ plans. “North Wind Portage does plan to pursue this work, and we feel we are uniquely qualified and capable to continue.”
Established in 1974, and transferred from the Department of Energy to the Army Corps in 1997, FUSRAP provides remediation of properties contaminated by nuclear weapons and nuclear power operations from the 1940s to 1960s under the Manhattan Engineer District and Atomic Energy Commission. There were 23 active sites in 10 states as of 2019.
Congress provided $200 million for the program in the fiscal 2020 federal budget signed into law in December. The Trump administration requested $150 million for the 2021 budget year, which begins on Oct. 1. The Energy Department has requested to reclaim management of FUSRAP from the Army Corps; it made the same proposal last year but was rebuffed by Congress.
The Luckey Site covers about 40 acres near the village of Luckey in rural Wood County. The property features a production building and warehouse, along with other infrastructure left from its use in beryllium processing for national defense from 1949 to 1961. During that time, the site received beryl ore, scrap beryllium, and radiologically contaminated scrap material, according to the procurement notice. Contaminants believed to be in soil, sediments, groundwater, and debris include beryllium, lead, radium-226, thorium-230, uranium-234, and uranium-238.
As of Jan. 31 of this year, 47,819 cubic yards of contaminated soil had been excavated. That represented 27% of the total anticipated excavation, according to an Army Corps update. Just over 1.6 million gallons of water had been treated, with a quarter of that reused for dust control and the rest released into drainage.
The hired contractor will be required to possess expertise in beryllium monitoring, mobile air monitoring, demolition and disposal of debris, and waste management, among other cleanup operations.
The Army Corps did not discuss the potential value and length of the new contract. However, the agency said in March 2017 that its cost projection for soil remediation had increased by $59.4 million, to $244 million, based on indications that there was additional contaminated material than previously identified. Work is expected to take eight to 10 years.
No further cleanup contracts at Luckey are anticipated.
Niagara Falls Cleanup Design
Separately, the Army Corps on Feb. 20 began compiling a list of potential vendors for an upcoming contract worth up to $50 million to provide design, planning, and construction management for environmental remediation of the Niagara Falls Storage Site (NFSS) in Lewiston, N.Y.
The contract would come in advance of the eventual cleanup job under FUSRAP, according to the sources-sought notice.
Bids are not yet being accepted. Instead, architectural and engineering firms can provide input on their capabilities to carry out the requested design work. “All responses will be used to determine the appropriate acquisition strategy for a potential future acquisition,” the notice says.
The Army Corps expects this year to both issue the request for proposals and award the contract, which with option periods would extend for up to a decade, the procurement notice says. An agency spokesperson on Wednesday said the contract award could occur in 2021.
There is a $25 million to $50 million award range for the deal.
The 191-acre Niagara Falls Storage Site was employed starting in 1944 for storage of radioactive materials including uranium ore produced during the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. In the 1980s the Department of Energy built an engineered landfill, the Interim Waste Containment Structure, for storage of what is now 278,072 cubic yards of contaminated material.
The main job once actual cleanup begins will be extraction, partial treatment, and off-site disposal of waste held in the containment structure. The remediation contractor might also be required to deal with contaminated soil, concrete, and groundwater in what is the called the Balance of Plant operable unit on the NFSS outside of the storage facility.
That job is expected to cost in excess of $500 million: $490.6 million for the Interim Waste Containment Structure and at least $30 million for the Balance of Plant. “Cost estimates will be further refined as the project moves through remedial design,” Susie Blair, spokeswoman for the Army Corps’ Buffalo District, said by email.
“The schedule to complete site remediation depends on the completion of ongoing remediation at other FUSRAP sites and the availability of program funding in future fiscal years. The Corps estimates it could take over 20 years to completely remediate the site and transfer it to the Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management,” according to Blair.
Responsibilities of the hired design firm will include: refining the full “scope, sequence, schedule, and quality objectives” for remedial design; completing design drawings for remediation of the Interim Waste Containment Structure, with expense projections; revising a 2004 evaluation of off-site transport of waste from the site; and submit a detailed inventory of the containment structure.
Design vendors must have a broad range of capabilities, encompassing: health physics and radiation safety, sizable design activities for extraction, processing, and disposal of radioactive materials; and operating an on-site laboratory; and conducting field investigations to collect design data.
