A BWX Technologies-led joint venture took over this week as the new remediation contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project in Western New York.
The four-month management transition started in February and ended Tuesday for West Valley Cleanup Alliance (WCVA), Jason Casper, the president and project manager of the alliance said during a Citizens Task Force meeting. The deal is worth up to $3 billion over a 10-year operating period. DOE holds an additional five-year option.
Casper spoke Wednesday at a meeing with the West Valley Citizen Task Force. He applauded the collaborative effort to transition from Jacobs-led CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley to the WCVA, which includes parent companies BWXT, Amentum Technology, and Geosyntec Consultants. The new contract also includes Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. and North Wind Portage as subcontractors.
The former contractor team has been in place at West Valley since August 2011 and now ends a 14-year term deal valued at $1 billion. “We’re talking about roughly the same time frame at about three times the dollars,” Casper said. “We’re in a great place and we’re carrying the whole workforce forward, so it’s pretty spectacular what we’re getting accomplished.”
DOE announced the new contract award in October 2024 after the West Valley Cleanup Alliance beat out two other bidders.
The West Valley Demonstration Project, located 35 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y., is owned by New York state and was home to a private nuclear fuel processing plant between 1963 and 1972. The plant processed 640 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and generated over 600,000 gallons of liquid high-level waste, that timeframe, leading to a 1980 congressional act that requires DOE remediate the waste and transport it to a federal repository for disposal.
DOE foots the bill for 90% of the cleanup cost with New York state paying the other 10%.
Demolition of key facilities, such as the Main Plant Process Building, was completed earlier this month before the transition completed, as did remediation of rooms designed for chemical storage, waste receipt, decontamination, and other functions at the main building.
Under the new contract, West Valley Cleanup Alliance will look to tear down and decommission the site’s Fuel Receiving and Storage Facility. Additionally, the company will tear down the Product Purification Cell, a part of the main building that was once highly contaminated and used during former nuclear fuel reprocessing operations.
