Early steps in the decommissioning of the long dormant SM-1 reactor at the Ft. Belvoir Army base in Virginia will begin in November, the Army Corps of Engineers announced recently.
The Corps of Engineers plans to “mobilize limited site crew” in early November to start prepping SM-1 reactor in Fairfax County for dismantlement, according to an update dated Oct. 13. Contractor APTIM AECOM Decommissioning LLC (A2D) will start asbestos removal and site environmental monitoring next month, the update said.
The remainder of this year and the majority of 2022 will be devoted to “additional site preparation.” Decommissioning should actually begin some time next year, the corps said. SM-1 should be fully decommissioned by 2025 or so, the corps estimates.
Alexandria, Va.-based A2D locked down the SM-1 contract in August 2020, according to a news release from the time. The project, valued at around $68 million, included all aspects of decommissioning such as removal of reactor components, materials transportation and site remediation. The contractor is a joint venture led by Aptim with Amentum.
A spokesperson for the Corps of Engineers told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing that a protest had been lodged challenging A2D’s award but that the contract had been upheld. Work on the project resumed in February following the protest, the spokesperson said.
SM-1, located just about 17 miles from Washington, was the Army’s first nuclear reactor and the first to be connected to the commercial power grid for a sustained period. The site’s fuel inventory was removed in 1974 and waste from the reactor’s three cores was shipped to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) and the Savannah River Site (SRS).
SM-1 shut down in 1973, just 16 years after it first achieved criticality in 1957.
AECOM spun off its government contracting business as Amentum in 2020.
Editor’s note 10/19/2021, 3:07 Eastern time: the story was changed to show that Amentum is a part owner in the joint venture.
