URS CH2M Oak Ridge landed an award of nearly $3.6 million for the six months ended March 31, good for 94 percent of the total available to the prime cleanup contractor for the former uranium enrichment facilities at the site near the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, according to the company’s latest award fee determination scorecard from DOE.
In the six-months ended this spring, the company, known as UCOR, began demolition of the K-27 uranium-enrichment facility – the last of the five gaseous diffusion plants at the site now known as the East Tennessee Technology Park. That effort is proceeding at a rate that will support [the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management’s] Vision 2016 objective to have the facility substantially demolished by the end of December, according to the scorecard, which was dated July 8.
The contractor got good marks from DOE, although the agency’s Oak Ridge field office did note in the score the company “experienced multiple electrical safety issues during this performance period and multiple deficiencies were noted in the surveillance and inspection rigor for operations outside of the major deactivation and demolition efforts.”
For example, walkdowns of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment and the 6556 area uncovered “an excess volume” of liquid low-level waste, which required treatment, that UCOR inspectors did not note in their own communications with DOE.
Also in the six-month period, “inadequate protection” of two workers cutting and draining ducts in the K-631 building “could have resulted in exposure to highly toxic chemicals,” according to the scorecard.
UCOR’s nine-year cleanup runs through July 31 and could be worth up to $2.43 billion, if DOE exercises a four-year option that is coming up. The contract’s base period expires July 31.
A UCOR spokesperson did not immediately reply to requests for comment over the weekend.
