The U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $2.5 billion management and operating contract Thursday to USA Repository Services, a subsidiary of the URS Corp., whose Washington Division ran Savannah River Site from 1989 until this year. It continues to manage its liquid waste program.
The five-year contract, with a five-year renewal option, is to provide mission support to the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management for the nation's first national repository for high-level radioactive waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
The new partnership's principal subcontractors are Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure Inc., and AREVA Federal Services Inc.
After two decades of debate, the Energy Department filed a formal application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June to build the Yucca Mountain project, which would become a final resting place for radioactive material currently stored at 121 temporary sites in 39 states -- including SRS near Augusta.
Yucca Mountain, a remote ridge on federal land in the Mojave Desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been under study for such a repository since the 1980s. SRS has two glass waste storage buildings, where radioactive waste encased in glass is stored in steel cylinders that could be shipped to Yucca Mountain.
According to an Energy Department press release, the contract would take effect April 1, 2009.
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