The Energy Department has picked up a two-year option to keep North Wind Solutions in charge of the Transuranic Waste Processing Center at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee through October 2020.
An Energy Department spokesperson confirmed Monday the department in October exercised its option to the original three-year base period. The entire five-year agreement has a potential value of about $163 million.
The subsidiary of Idaho-based North Wind Group in January earned 97 percent of its potential fee for work conducted during the third year of its contract, which ended in late October 2018.
North Wind processes, packages, and ships transuranic waste from Oak Ridge to the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. This includes both contact-handled TRU waste and the more radioactive remote-handled TRU waste. The firm also processes certain low-level waste and mixed-low-level waste for disposal.
Most of the waste processed comes from cleanup and operations at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Some of it is generated by BWX Technologies-owned Nuclear Fuel Services in Tennessee, which makes nuclear fuel for the U.S. Navy and other customers.
