The Energy Department has exercised a one-year option to keep Spectra Tech on the job overseeing spent fuel facilities at the Idaho National Laboratory through March 2021.
Procurement documents show the department picked up its last option in February for the current contrac.
The Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based engineering and environmental services firm began work on its $45 million contract in April 2016, managing spent fuel storage installations licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) at INL and the former Fort Saint Vrain nuclear power plant in Colorado. Spectra Tech ensures regulatory compliance and physical security at the spent fuel installations.
Nuclear material from the Three Mile Island reactor Unit 2 in Pennsylvania is stored at the lab’s Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center. About 150 tons of highly radioactive core debris, including melted fuel, resulted from the reactor’s partial meltdown in 1979. The retired nuclear plant at St. Vrain has about 23 metric tons of heavy metal.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management is planning a potential 15-year, $6.4 billion cleanup award for the Idaho National Laboratory, which would replace both the Spectra Tech contract and the five-year, $2 billion Fluor Idaho remediation contract that is set to expire in May 2021.
About 90 representatives from government contractors showed up at a Feb. 25 industry day to learn more about the planned new INL contract. The draft request for proposals was issued in February.
The privately held Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) will stay on until at least September 2025 as the operator of facilities owned by federal Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL).
Atomic Energy of Canada announced Monday that it had exercised the four-year option on CNL’s contract. The six-year base for the award expires in September 2021.
“This renewal is a testament to the great work being performed by CNL’s 3,300 staff, its contractors, suppliers, and to the support we receive from the communities in which we operate,” Canadian Nuclear Laboratories President and CEO Joe McBrearty said in a prepared statement.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is a nuclear science and technology organization managed by the Canadian National Energy Alliance, a consortium of contractors Jacobs, Fluor, and SNC-Lavalin. Under the government-owned, contractor-operated approach, it manages all AECL facilities. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is contracted for over $1 billion (CAD) of work each year, with its owner earning fees based on performance.
Among CNL’s projects are the Port Hope Area Initiative, the $1.3 billion (CAD) remediation of radioactive contaminants in two municipalities in Ontario, and development of a near-surface disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste on the property of the Chalk River Laboratories in the province.
“This contract extension will allow for the critical work on the revitalization of the Chalk River Laboratories to continue, to allow for ongoing world-class nuclear innovation for decades to come,” AECL said in a press release. “It will also allow for important environmental remediation work to go uninterrupted for the benefit of all Canadians and of future generations.”
Field operations under the Port Hope Area Initiative have been suspended since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are planning a gradual return to cleanup work in the community, when the federal/provincial governments, public health authorities and CNL’s health and safety experts indicate that doing so is safe for our workers and the public,” the project said Thursday on Twitter.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March spent $713 of its remaining balance from the federal fund for disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste.
As it has for more than a year, the agency spent the money on unspecified program planning and support, according to the latest Nuclear Waste Fund update to Congress.
That left with NRC with an unobligated balance of $422,071 as of March 31.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is supposed to use its balance from the fund to review the Department of Energy’s 2008 license application for a nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev. The Obama administration froze licensing in 2010, but a federal appeals court in August 2013 directed the NRC to proceed with its work on the application.
At the time, the agency had just over $13.5 million from the Nuclear Waste Fund. It has since spent more than $13.1 million of the carryover. The primary expenses have included $8.4 million to complete a safety evaluation report on licensing and $1.6 million for a supplement to the environmental impact statement for the project.
Congress would have to appropriate additional money to enable DOE and the NRC to resume licensing, but rebuffed three requests from the Trump administration to do just that for the 2018 to 2020 federal fiscal years. The White House changed tack for the upcoming fiscal 2021, instead asking for $27.5 million for the Energy Department to develop means for interim storage of radioactive used fuel from nuclear power plants in the absence of a permanent disposal site. It remains to be seen whether the House and Senate Appropriations committees will support that request.
