CH2M anticipates the Energy Department will pursue a legal challenge to a $33.2 million decision from the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals last month in favor of a CH2M joint venture that was the former prime cleanup contractor for the Idaho National Laboratory.
That is according to documents that CH2M filed Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding its proposed buyout by Jacobs Engineering. One small section of the 600-page filing deals with pending litigation for CH2M.
“The DOE is expected to seek relief from the decision, and, if unsuccessful, to appeal,” CH2M said in the SEC document. The company said it believes the outcome of the dispute won’t have a major adverse impact on its financial condition.
CH2M-WG Idaho, or CWI, was the prime remediation contractor at DOE’s Idaho site from May 2005 through March 2016. The contractor would ultimately file an appeal with the contract board regarding CWI’s final fee for the base contract period from May 2005 through September 2012, maintaining that DOE had failed to pay all the fees it was owed from that period.
DOE has said previously that it is weighing its legal options.
Fluor last year assumed the Idaho remediation work, covering waste removal and other cleanup operations as well as the Advance Mixed Waste Treatment Project.
CH2M remains a significant presence in the DOE nuclear cleanup complex, with large contracts at the Hanford Site in Washington state and Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. Last week, a CH2M-headed team took over remediation of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, under a contract awarded in May that is worth $1.5 billion over five years, according to DOE.
