Contractor CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) has earned $300,000, or 66 percent, of its potential fee from the Energy Department for six months of cleanup work at the West Valley Demonstration Project near Buffalo, N.Y.
The fee was awarded for the joint venture’s performance between March 1 and Aug. 29 of this year, according to a recently published fee determination scorecard from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
The score concerns Phase 1 decommissioning and facility disposition at the former commercial spent fuel reprocessing plant. The contractor could have earned up to roughly $456,000 for the period. It received ratings of “Very Good” for business administration and safety, health, and quality management; “Good” for project management; and “Satisfactory” for environmental and regulatory compliance.
DOE praised CHBWV in a number of operational areas, including addressing safety issues, commitment to cybersecurity, streamlining data management, and timely submission of regulatory reports. The contractor, though, was dinged for “poor planning” related to a readiness assessment of demolition of West Valley’s Vitrification Facility, among other matters.
West Valley was the only U.S. site ever to reprocess spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors. Nuclear Fuel Services provided reprocessing from 1966 to 1972.
Demolition began in September on the site’s vitrification plant, which prior to closing in 2002 converted roughly 600,000 gallons of high-level waste from former operations into a glass form for storage.
CHBWV met most of its goals and objectives for the evaluation period. The contractor received 75 percent of its fee on the prior scorecard evaluation period.
The contractor currently has a $545 million project at West Valley that extends until March 2020, according to a DOE EM summary of major contracts.
