While there is no official word from the parties, there have been increasing signs in recent days that French waste management company Veolia has completed its purchase of Ohio-based Wastren Advantage.
Wastren CEO Steve Moore confirmed the pending deal last August, but the companies since then have largely avoiding discussing the matter in public. Terms of the sale, including how much Veolia is paying for Wastren, have also been kept under wraps.
One industry official, not connected with either company, on Friday said word was circulating that the sale closed late last week.
Officials with both companies did not respond to phone calls and emails since Thursday. One Veolia source contacted Sunday indicated he did not have authority to comment on the matter.
A person who answered the phone at Wastren Advantage offices in Ohio last week did so by saying VNS, apparently for Veolia Nuclear Solutions — the corporate entity that consolidates all of Veolia’s nuclear businesses.
Based in Piketon, Ohio, Wastren is a facilities operations and remediation services company with a presence at several Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites. It is the current prime analysis contractor for the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. Wastren tests and analyzes liquid radioactive waste from Hanford’s tank farms to ensure the material can be safely stored underground and, eventually, vitrified at the Waste Treatment Plant. The company’s current contract is worth roughly $45 million and runs through Sept. 20, 2020, including options.
Wastren was also the prime contractor on the Transuranic Waste Processing Center at DOE’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee before North Wind Solutions took over in 2015. It is now a subcontractor to North Wind on the facility.
Veolia has been trying to expand into the U.S. nuclear cleanup market. In 2016, it acquired nuclear waste cleanup technology firm Kurion of Palo Alto, Calif.
