The joint venture building the delayed Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee was extended into May and could still be extended much longer, an agency spokesperson said this week.
The most recent major contract roundup dated Feb. 9 for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management shows the latest expiration date for the APTIM/North Wind Construction venture is May 5. Prior editions of the document, which DOE periodically updates, listed the contract as ending in early December 2022.
“We expect to finish a key installation needed for the foundation of the headworks facility this spring, and we expect to complete the framework for the treatment facility this summer,” said the DOE spokesperson via email. The spokesperson declined to provide more details on construction until a longer extension is issued.
The value of the contract, launched Dec. 6, 2018, is now listed as $119 million. When the contract was first announced in 2018, the deal was worth $92 million and DOE figured the planned mercury removal facility at East Poplar Creek near the Y-12 National Security Complex would be about finished by now.
But, as detailed in a May 2022 Government Accountability Office report, the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility project was slowed by “bedrock and soils problems during construction of the foundations of the project’s two main buildings.” As of March 2022, the project was only 40% complete, DOE said at the time.
Last August, DOE placed the operation date for the plant in 2025.
The DOE initially estimated the entire mercury treatment plant project cost would run about $225 million. Thanks to a firm fixed-price contract, any cost escalation should be borne mainly by the contractor team, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The mercury plant will be made up of two main structures—the headworks and the treatment facility. The headworks facility will capture creek flow on the west end of Y-12, store excess stormwater, remove grit and then send the water via pipeline to the treatment plant on the east side of Y-12, according to the federal watchdog report. The cleaned water would then go into East Fork Poplar Creek. The treatment facility should be able to handle about 3,000 gallons per minute.
