Phil Breidenbach, former president and project manager for the contractor that manages the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, has been named chief engineer for the current liquid waste manager at DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Breidenbach is a vice president at AECOM, lead partner at Savannah River Remediation, along with Bechtel National, CH2M, and BWX Technologies. He most recently was on special assignment for AECOM in Idaho Falls, Idaho, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Savannah River Remediation announced Breidenbach’s appointment as chief engineer in a Tuesday news release. He replaces Kent Fortenberry, who has taken over as director of nuclear services and engineering at URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), the Energy Department’s prime cleanup contractor for the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.
AECOM acquired URS in 2014. Along with its roles at Oak Ridge and Savannah River, it partners with BWXT on WIPP prime Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP).
Breidenbach headed NWP from April 2015 to June 2017. During that period WIPP was recovering from a February 2014 radiation release, which kept the transuranic waste disposal site out of service for nearly three years.
Breidenbach has logged more than 30 years in project management and operations at sites within DOE’s Office of Environmental Management and semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, SRR said. He last worked at the Savannah River Site in 2007.
Savannah River Remediation is currently scheduled to be on the job through May 31, under a five-month contract extension, while DOE resolves a protest against the new 10-year, $4.7 billion liquid waste management award in October to a BWXT-Bechtel-Honeywell team. However, the department last month said it intended to give SRR a second contract extension through March 2019.
