As expected, the prime cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee has taken over transuranic waste responsibilities from North Wind, the agency said Tuesday.
As of last week, Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) took over the Transuranic Waste Processing Center from North Wind Solutions, DOE said in a Tuesday announcement.
North Wind’s seven-year, $291-million contract expired Oct. 26 and the transuranic waste work was absorbed into UCOR’s site-wide cleanup contract. The current iteration of the UCOR contract, held by a team consisting of partners Amentum, Jacobs and Honeywell, began in May and is valued at $8.3 billion over 10 years.
So far, Transuranic Waste Processing Center workers processed, repackaged and certified 98% of the legacy debris waste for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, DOE said in the news release.
The processing center was built at the DOE Office of Environmental Management nuclear cleanup site in 2003. To date, workers at Oak Ridge have sent 83% the site’s contact-handled transuranic waste and 70% of the more radioactive remote-handled waste to WIPP, DOE said in the announcement.
The orientation meeting for North Wind employees being transferred over to UCOR occurred Oct. 27. UCOR plans to finish any remaining legacy transuranic waste processing, plan for eventual shipment to WIPP and ultimately tear down the processing facility.
