The Energy Department plans to retain the Jacobs-led incumbent cleanup contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state through June 2023.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the 39-month extension for CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) in a Thursday press release. The vendor is working under a $571 million contractor that began in August 2011 and was set to expire April 17.
The total value of the extension is $243 million.
The extension should allow the vendor to efficiently complete demolition and removal of the Main Plant Process Building, the last remaining major facility at the West Valley site, along with other tasks, the cleanup office said in the release.
CH2M-BWXT has finished 98% of the deactivation work needed before the process building can come down, DOE said, adding the vendor also torn down 44 of the 47 smaller facilities at West Valley.
The agency also credits the contractor with making significant infrastructure upgrades to support current and future cleanup efforts at the site.
The state-owned West Valley Demonstration Project is located on about 200 acres inside the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center. Nuclear Fuel Services, a privately held company, ran a fuel reprocessing plant at the site for six years ending in 1972. At that point commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing activities ceased and never resumed at the process building.
Congress passed the West Valley Demonstration Project Act in 1980, making DOE responsible for remediation of the site and paying for 90% of the cost. The state foots the other 10%.
In addition to structures, the West Valley site includes disposal areas, waste lagoons, and above-ground waste storage areas, licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, some of which are expected to remain in place after completion of Phase 1 of remediation.
The Energy Department, NRC, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) are still working on a supplement to a 2010 environmental impact statement, on what to do with certain facilities expected to remain on the property beyond 2030.
In December, President Donald Trump signed into law a bill to reauthorize the West Valley Project at the current funding of $75 million annually through fiscal 2026.
The measure also calls for a U.S. Government Accountability Office report on waste stored at West Valley, along with the costs of treatment, storage, and potential disposal paths. For example, West Valley is home to 278 casks of transuranic waste, which is not considered defense-related by DOE because Nuclear Fuel Services was a private company. As a result, the casks are not eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The GAO report could be out by the end of 2020.
