North Wind Site Services has won a Department of Energy remediation contract, potentially worth $22 million over five years, at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna, N.Y., the agency said this week in a press release.
West Virginia-based North Wind Site Services is part of North Wind Group, which in turn is owned by Cook Inlet Region, an Alaska Native Corporation, according to the company website.
The North Wind Site Services agreement is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity task order contract for DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration work at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, where research and development is conducted in the design and operation of naval nuclear propulsion engines.
Tasks at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory will include tearing down and removing old facilities, waste management and waste transportation, according to Monday’s press release from the DOE Office of Environmental Management.
The DOE issued a request for information for remediation work at the laboratory in August 2019.
First built in 1948, the laboratory consists of 170 acres located along the south bank of the Mohawk River, according to an Environmental Protection Agency background sheet.
A 27-acre parcel of the laboratory is the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU), built in the early 1950’s to harness chemical separation of plutonium and uranium from irradiated materials for use in nuclear weapons and power plants.
After completion of major SPRU cleanup by what is now Amentum in 2019, DOE transferred ownership of the SPRU back to the Office of Naval Reactors in December 2020. About 24 containers of transuranic waste remain at SPRU. These are scheduled to be shipped to Idaho National Laboratory in 2024 where they will be prepared within a year for disposal at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
