The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) said Tuesday it has delayed by about three weeks releasing a request for proposals for decommissioning its SM-1 nuclear power reactor at Fort Belvoir, Va.
The procurement notice, previously expected around July 29, is now scheduled to be issued during the week of Aug. 19, according to Brenda Barber, project manager for the Environmental and Munitions Design Center in the Army Corps’ Baltimore District. Barber told RadWaste Monitor the revised schedule was prompted by “procurement-sensitive” review issues with the notice, but said she could not discuss specifics.
There was no immediate word on what, if any, impact the slowed procurement document could have on the remainder of the USACE schedule for awarding the contract. As of June, the Army Corps expected to review bids from October to next April, and then to award the contract at some point from May to July 2020.
The Army operated the pressurized-water reactor from 1957 to 1973 on its base less than 20 miles from Washington, D.C. It produced power, but was primarily used for training personnel to work at other plants in the Army Nuclear Power Program. The reactor has been in safe-storage mode since deactivation and limited decontamination that wrapped up in 1974.
Work under the decommissioning contract would include project management, removal of contaminated reactor parts and other materials, demolition, and waste disposal. The potential value of the award has not been made public.
Barber has said she anticipates six to eight competitive bidders.
The Army Corps this week also conducted site visits for potential decommissioning contract bidders for the deactivated SM-1A reactor at Fort Greely, Alaska. The RFP for that job is due out in 2021, with an award anticipated the following year and the start of decommissioning in 2022 or 2023.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June continued to spend next to nothing from its remaining balance from the federal fund intended to pay for a nuclear waste disposal facility.
The agency spent only $479 from the Nuclear Waste Fund for unspecified “program planning and support,” according to its latest monthly report to Congress.
“While there are no significant actions to report for the month, the NRC provided limited program planning and support activities that resulted in nominal expenditures,” commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki wrote in a July 25 letter submitted with the report to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and other lawmakers in both chambers of Congress.
Svinicki used identical language in her letters for the NRC updates for May, in which the agency spent $639 from the fund; April, in which it spent $939; March, in which it spent $128; and February, in which it spent $1,249. In the update for January, in which the NRC spent $4,073 from the fund, Svinicki also noted costs for “federal court litigation activities.”
The June expenditure left the NRC with a $408,743 unused, unobligated balance from the fund.
The agency in 2008 received a license application from the Department of Energy to build and operate a geologic repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev., for spent nuclear power reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Obama administration in 2010 cut off funding for the licensing process. However, a federal judge in August 2013 ordered the NRC to resume its proceeding.
Since then, the industry regulator has spent just over $13.1 million of the nearly $13.6 million it had on hand at the time. The largest expenditure was $8.4 million to finish a safety evaluation report for the license application, followed by $1.6 million for an environmental impact statement supplement and $1.1 million to transfer documents from the licensing into its online documents library.
The NRC would need additional appropriations from Congress to resume its review of the license application. The agency and the Energy Department have sought such funding three times to date under the Trump administration, but Congress has so far zeroed out those requests.
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