he Department of Energy’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has hired a Kiewit affiliate, The Industrial Co. or TIC, as the replacement subcontractor to complete construction of a major underground ventilation project.
Nuclear Waste Partnership in a Wednesday press release it has awarded the subcontract, worth about $163 million, to Colorado-based TIC for the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, now scheduled for completion in 2025.
The Kiewit company is already in place at the disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., for defense-related transuranic waste.
TIC was previously awarded a $500,000 time-and-materials letter contract in September 2020 to assist with transition efforts after the prime, an Amentum-BWX Technologies partnership, terminated a $135-million agreement with the prior subcontractor, Critical Applications Alliance. Kiewit was also awarded a $3-million subcontract in October to finish building the Salt Reduction Building on the surface that is a key component of the ventilation project.
“We are extremely pleased to bring TIC onboard,” said Nuclear Waste Partnership’s president and project manager Sean Dunagan in the press release. “After an exhaustive and thorough procurement process, we believe TIC is the right contractor to complete the largest construction project at WIPP in almost three decades.”
Since the Critical Applications Alliance deal was aborted, the DOE has re-baselined the cost and timeline, and now targets a 2025 completion of the project. Before COVID and the contract termination, DOE had been hoping to get the ventilation facility finished as early as 2022.
The Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, the largest containment fan system among DOE nuclear facilities, provides a modern air supply system designed to run continuously in unfiltered or filtered mode, according to the prime contractor. The system will provide about 540,000 cubic feet per minute (cfm) of air to the underground, significantly more than the 170,000 maximum cfm provided by the current ventilation system. The enhanced airflow will allow simultaneous salt mining, rock bolting and waste emplacement operations.
The DOE and its prime contractor expect to pick up some of the slack this summer when it restarts a ventilation fan that has been idle since 2014. In February of that year an underground radiation leak damaged the WIPP underground and its ventilation system. The disposal site was out of service for about three years as a result. Finishing the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System is considered crucial to returning WIPP to pre-accident operational levels when it could emplace 700-plus shipments per year. The most shipments at WIPP post-accident was 311 in 2018.
“We understand the importance of the safe and efficient completion of the [ventilation] project and how it will support the Department of Energy’s mission for the WIPP facility,” said The Industrial Co.’s executive vice president John Jennings in the press release.
Nuclear Waste Partnership and Critical Applications Alliance filed court papers this month putting the fired subcontractor’s lawsuit against the prime on hold while the parties pursue mediation.
On April 15, WIPP work crews completed a two-month maintenance outage at the complex, DOE said in a press release this week. As WIPP emerges from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, managers there hope to the current five to 10-shipments per week of operation. WIPP is closed several weeks per year due to maintenance, weather and various state, federal or tribal holidays.
