The Department of Energy said Thursday it plans to extend the Hanford Site Plateau Remediation Contract held by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. The proposed contract extension is for up to an additional year through Sept. 30, 2019.
CH2M’s current 10-year contract is set to expire in just over three months at the end of September. It is valued at $4.5 billion, plus $1.3 billion of economic stimulus work assigned during the Obama administration. The Energy Department has not released the value for the planned contract extension.
The agency announced plans in April to release a draft request for proposals for the follow-on Plateau Remediation Contract. The draft RFP was expected in 15 to 45 days, or between May 4 and June 3, but it has not been released yet.
Much of the work planned under the new contract is expected to be similar to the work done by CH2M at the highly contaminated former plutonium production complex in Washington state. The company, owned since December by Jacobs Engineering Group, is responsible for much of the remaining river corridor cleanup at Hanford and central Hanford cleanup, with the exception of work related to 177 waste storage tanks.
The April announcement said an additional scope of work would be added: closing underground waste storage tanks. The Energy Department is making plans to close the 16 tanks in the C Tank Farm, the first tank farm with waste emptied to regulatory requirements. However, the report for the Senate energy and water spending bill for fiscal 2019 would prohibit DOE’s Richland Operations Office, which would be responsible for the plateau cleanup contract, from paying for any work in the Hanford tank farms.
Work listed for a possible CH2M contract extension includes completion of shipments of radioactive sludge from the K West Basin to central Hanford for dry storage and completion of demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant. The first shipment of sludge could be trucked to T Plant in central Hanford next week. Demolition is currently halted at the Plutonium Finishing Plant after two incidents in 2017 in which workers inhaled or ingested radioactive particles.
Other work under the contract extension would include continued treatment of contaminated groundwater, preparations to move cesium and strontium capsules to dry storage, stabilizing the longer of the two PUREX waste storage tunnels, and other operations to dig up waste sites and tear down unneeded buildings.
