Group resumes cleanup after contract award protest withdrawn

Boise, ID— The U.S. Department of Energy has asked a team led by Boise-based Washington Group International to proceed with the cleanup of the DOE’s Hanford site along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington state. This request follows the withdrawal of a contract protest.

The River Corridor Closure Contract, valued by the DOE at approximately $1.9 billion over the next eight years, was awarded on March 23 to Washington Closure LLC, a partnership of Washington Group International, Bechtel National, and CH2M HILL. The contract has a cost-plus-incentive-fee pricing arrangement.

Included in the scope of work for the River Corridor Project is the placement of the deactivated plutonium production reactors - some of them dating back to the 1940s - in interim safe storage (also known as cocooning), cleaning up waste sites located near the Columbia River, demolishing contaminated facilities and operating the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility.

The protest to the contract award in April stopped the Washington Closure team’s formal transition to assume the project after only 10 days of work. The DOE asked the company to resume on Monday, June 6, where the team left off.