Jacobs Team Beats Four Others for $6.4B DOE Cleanup Contract in Idaho

U.S. Energy Dept.'s Idaho National Laboratory is a major advanced nuclear energy test center, but also a key cleanup site for weapons production wastes stored for decades. Image: US Dept. of Energy

A team led by Jacobs and North Wind Portage is set to manage nuclear waste cleanup and storage at the U.S. Energy Dept.'s Idaho National Laboratory Site under a 10-year contract awarded May 27. The job is valued at up to $6.4 billion.

The team replaces one led by Fluor Corp. that has managed work at the 890-sq-mile site near Idaho Falls since 2016 under a contract expiring on Sept. 30. DOE did not disclose names of four other bidders, but they included a Fluor team, according to industry sources

DOE chose the Jacobs team as “best value” for the indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract that includes cost reimbursed and fixed-price task orders related to cleanup of spent nuclear fuel and Cold War-era nuclear waste stored at the site.

The Idaho facility also has an advanced nuclear reactor and serves as a major global testing and research center for nuclear power materials and fuels.

Cleanup work at the Idaho site includes operating a newly built 53,000-sq-ft integrated waste treatment facility and closing and demolishing another facility; as well as management of spent nuclear fuel there and at Fort St. Vrain. a DOE-managed decommissioned nuclear power plant waste site near Platteville, Colo.; disposal and management of transuranic and low-level waste; facility decontamination and decommissioning; environmental remediation; and site infrastructure.

In these projects, crews will move spent fuel from wet to dry storage and close nuclear tank farms, among other tasks.

There were 106 shipments of transuranic waste from the site last year to the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) storage facility in Carlsbad, N.M.

The Jacobs team also includes subcontractors Navarro Research and Engineering, Oak Ridge Technologies and Spectra Tech. They claim to support 1,900 jobs.

Karen Wiemelt, Jacobs senior vice president of its North American nuclear business, said in a statement that work will “protect the Snake River Plain Aquifer."

Most cleanup work is driven by regulatory compliance agreements with the state that date to the 1990s. Cleanup has been ongoing since 2005.

Tim Newcomb is a newspaper and magazine journalist based in Western Washington, covering design and construction in buildings and transportation around the Northwest.

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