AECOM’s contract to demolish an Energy Department experimental plutonium facility that operated in the 1950s was set to expire Wednesday, with demolition of the site’s two main buildings expected to stretch into next summer.
The Energy Department was expected to extend AECOM’s deactivation, demolition, and removal of facilities contract at the Separations Research Process Unit (SPRU) in upstate New York, but had made no official announcement at deadline Friday for Weapons Complex Monitor.
The $145.8-million deal was awarded to URS in 2007. AECOM inherited the contract in 2014, when it purchased URS Corp. DOE’s original cleanup contract with URS was valued at $67 million over four years. AECOM now estimates the cleanup will run through 2018 and cost about $400 million.
The contract has been a headache for AECOM, which has spent its own money on SPRU work outside the scope of the DOE contract. The company filed a $100 million claim with DOE in 2014 to recover costs related to “unanticipated requirements and permitting delays by federal and state agencies, as well as delays and related ground stabilization activities caused by Hurricane Irene in 2011,” a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows.
Still, work continues at the plant, used for researching separation of plutonium from irradiated uranium from 1950 to 1953. The facility is co-located with the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory.
On Nov. 18, AECOM finished demolition of above-ground portions of SPRU Building G2, which along with the H2 building and its underground tank vaults are the two main facilities at the Cold War-era complex. H2 demolition, taking place under a ventilated cover after a series of radiation incidents in 2010, is slated to wrap up next summer.
Neither DOE’s Office of Environmental Management nor AECOM replied to requests for comment this week.
