The U.S. Energy Department on Monday issued a request for information kicking off market research for the next cleanup contract at the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) project in Utah.
The current contract, held by North Wind Portage, expires after September 2021. The work involves moving tailings from the old Atlas Mineral Corp. uranium ore processing site by rail to the Crescent Junction offsite waste disposal facility 30 miles away.
In April 2016, Portage landed a five-year, $154 million follow-on task order to its initial five-year contract. The company was acquired by rival North Wind in January 2017.
The new award is intended to complete remediation of residual radioactive material at the site 3 miles northwest of Moab in Grand County. The 435-acre property includes 130 acres covered by a uranium mill tailings pile at the confluence of the Colorado River and the Moab Wash.
Uranium Reduction Co. built the Moab facility in 1956 and sold the property to Atlas in 1962. Atlas processed uranium ore under a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license until 1984, then declared bankruptcy in 1998. The 2001 National Defense Authorization Act made the Energy Department responsible for remediating the site and addressing the estimated 16 million tons, or 12 million cubic yards, of uranium tailings.
As of last month, the current contractor has shipped more than 10 million tons of waste to Crescent Junction. A project completion date of 2029 is based on the contractor moving four trains of tailings per week, although that would slip to 2034 if only two shipments are moving weekly.
The upcoming DOE contract would cover excavation of the tailings pile, remediation of the contaminated sub-pile below the tailings, placement of residual radioactive material in the disposal cell, and eventual restoration of the Crescent Junction site.
The Energy Department wants to determine if all or part of the Moab work can be set aside for small business. Interested parties should submit a capability statement of between 12 and 15 pages, describing relevant federal environmental work done over the past five years.
The capability statements, and any questions about the request for information, should be emailed by 12 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 19, to [email protected].
