A Texas-based company has been awarded a five-year nuclear cleanup contract for a U.S. Department of Energy site in the Idaho desert.
The agency announced Thursday that the $1.4 billion contract will go to a contractor team led by Fluor Corp., reported the Post Register (http://bit.ly/1PnNVvN ). Fluor beat out another Fortune 500 company, AECOM, for the Idaho Cleanup Project Core.
Fluor opened an office in Idaho Falls in 2014. The company has managed DOE operations at other sites.
Fluor will be responsible for cleaning toxic and radioactive contamination, watching over spent nuclear fuel and other duties at the site west of Idaho Falls. It will take over two existing cleanup contracts that are currently held by Idaho Treatment Group and CH2M-WG Idaho, also called CWI.
Much of the transuranic waste was buried under dirt decades ago. DOE officials said they expect all of it to be fully cleaned up and shipped outside the state by the end of the five-year contract.
There are several work milestones in the contract in order to "align contractor and taxpayer interests," according to a DOE news release. It also requires Fluor to "in good faith" offer positions to existing and qualified Idaho Treatment Group and CWI employees, but not managerial or supervisor positions, said DOE spokeswoman Danielle Miller.
There will be a 90-day transition period while operations move from the current contractors to the Fluor-managed team, said Miller in an email.
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As many as four contractor teams were interested in the ICP Core contract in 2014, but interest dwindled. Some dropped out because of what they saw as overly strict teams and conditions with insufficient awards. It led to some concern about a lack of competition for the new contract.
A Fluor spokeswoman declined to comment, saying she doesn't have enough information.
