New Hanford contractor to start work soon under $10 billion deal. Leader named

The 60-day transition to a new central Hanford cleanup contractor will start on Oct. 5, the Department of Energy said Tuesday, and a leader for the contractor has been named.

The turnover from the expiring contract held by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. to the contract awarded to Central Plateau Cleanup Co. was delayed by a legal challenge to the award of the $10 billion, 10-year contract and the coronavirus pandemic.

The appeal of the contract award was settled in DOE’s favor, but DOE waited to start the transition until more Hanford workers had returned to the nuclear reservation as new COVID-19 cases are on the decline in the Tri-Cities area.

Central Plateau Cleanup is owned by a team lead by Amentum, formerly Aecom, and including Fluor Federal Services and Atkins Nuclear Secured.

Amentum said that the team brings more than 100 years of combined nuclear experience, including 63 years at Hanford to the new contract. The companies have collectively decommissioned 1,179 facilities and disposed of more waste for the U.S. environmental cleanup program than any other company, it said.

Scott Sax will serve as president and project manager of the new contractor. He is well known at Hanford.

He was the the president of Washington Closure Hanford as it successfully completed most cleanup of Hanford along the Columbia River.

He also has served as the project operations manager at the Hanford tank farm contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, and as deputy general manager at the Waste Treatment Completion Co. building the Hanford vitrification plant.

His Hanford experience also includes work at the Plutonium Finishing Plant and the K Basins.

“Our goal is to be the safest, best-performing, most respected cleanup contractor in the Department of Energy complex,” Sax said.

CH2M employs about 1,700 workers at Hanford and is in its 12th year of work at the nuclear reservation after earlier extensions to its original 10-year contract. Most employees are expected to transfer to the new contractor, with more of the new leadership team and other details to be announced in early October.

The new contract covers much of the environmental cleanup work of the site, with the exception of Hanford’s 56 million gallons of radioactive waste in underground tanks and the plant being built to glassify the tank waste for disposal.

It includes decontaminating and demolishing buildings; digging up radioactive and other contaminated waste and soil; treatment of contaminated groundwater; and operating a large lined landfill for radioactive waste in the center of the site.

This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 5:00 AM.