Veolia has won a contract to build what it describes as a “water detention” facility at the U.S. Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
Veolia Nuclear Solutions-Federal Services said Tuesday that DOE vendor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth has awarded it a subcontract to build a system to contain any runoff from demolition of the X-326 process building at the former uranium enrichment plant complex near the village of Piketon.
The system will circle the X-326 building, contain the runoff, and prevent contaminated water from reaching local water supplies, according to a Veolia press release. The facility will pump and treat the water.
The Veolia release refers to the agreement as a multimillion-dollar project, but does not reveal the actual price. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth could not immediately be reached for comment.
“We are extremely pleased by FBP’s decision and believe it is a testament to the deep-seated experience, operational know-how, and unique technological abilities our team can marshal for critical projects like this,” Billy Morrison, president and CEO of VNSFS, said in the press release.
Veolia received authorization to start preparing for construction on Nov. 20. The subcontract is a 277-day project, a spokesman for the company said in a Tuesday email.
The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said earlier this year it expects to start demolition of the 1950s-era process building in July 2020. It will be the first of three 30-acre process buildings, the others being X-333 and X-330, to be taken down by 2034. Demolition of X-326 is expected to last through 2023.
The X-326 plant was built originally to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and later for nuclear power plants.
Washington Department of Ecology Deputy Director Polly Zehm is retiring from state service at the end of January, just a month after her boss, agency spokesman Randy Bradbury said Monday.
Zehm served more than 30 years with the agency, about 16 of them as deputy director, according Bradbury. She sent an internal email within Ecology in early December, around the time Director Maia Bellon announced her own departure by the end of 2019.
Before coming to headquarters in Olympia in late 2003, Zehm worked at the agency’s regional office in Yakima. She was a regional director for Ecology from 1997 to 2003, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Prior to her state career, Zehm did laboratory analysis and process control at municipal wastewater treatment facilities for nine years for the cities of Olympia and Ellensburg.
The Ecology Department is the state’s regulator for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Site near the city of Richland, along with commercial radioactive waste operations within its borders. Between 70 and 80 people work at Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program.
Gov. Jay Inslee (D) has yet to announce a replacement for Bellon, who plans to go into private legal practice.
