Critical Applications Alliance (CAA), a venture comprised of two Houston-based companies, has won a $135 million contract to build a new permanent ventilation system at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M.
The award to the team of Christensen Building Group and Kilgore Industries was announced Monday by the Energy Department and its WIPP contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP).
“This is an extremely important day for us,” NWP President and Project Manager Bruce Covert said in a press release. “After an exhaustive and thorough procurement process, we believe CAA is the right contractor to undertake the largest construction project at WIPP in almost three decades.”
“This is a significant improvement for the WIPP facility in support of DOE’s national mission of nuclear waste cleanup,” DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader said in the release.
The Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, as it is known officially, should boost airflow to the underground transuranic waste disposal site from the current level of 170,000 cubic feet per minute to 540,000 cubic feet per minute. This would enable WIPP to resume simultaneous waste emplacement and salt mining operations, which it has not done since a February 2014 underground radiation release took the facility offline for about three years.
The entire ventilation project is valued at about $288 million and is expected to be completed in 2021. The Energy Department and its contractor have already awarded several smaller ventilation-related contracts, for industrial-size fans and a salt reduction facility.
The Christensen website said it has completed a variety of industrial infrastructure projects over the years. The Kilgore website said it has built some of the most advanced heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems in the United States.
