Veolia is an integrated subcontractor on the team which began the new multi-billion-dollar contract at the start of October to perform decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) in southern Ohio.
Veolia Nuclear Solutions – Federal Services (VNSFS), a part of VNA ESS, brings its expertise in waste management, engineering, technology and DD&R to this important cleanup contract as part of the Southern Ohio Cleanup Company (SOCCo) team. The venture is led by Amentum, Fluor and Cavendish Nuclear.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management awarded the PORTS D&D contract to SOCCo in July 2023. The D&D contract has an estimated value of $5.87 billion over a 10-year period and includes performance of task orders issued, up to an additional five years.
Work to be performed under this new contract will include but not be limited to demolition and disposal of facilities, process equipment, related process buildings, and other ancillary facilities. The contract also includes remediation of contaminated soils and groundwater, and disposition of uranium material.
VNSFS experts have been leading the work at the PORTS On-site Waste Disposal Facility (OSWDF) since the contract transition began over the summer and will continue to do so as part of the new contract.
The PORTS site dates to the early 1950s when the Atomic Energy Commission sought to dramatically expand its production of enriched uranium for military purposes and to provide fuel for a burgeoning nuclear power industry. Considering the area’s abundant water resources and labor force, and availability of reliable electrical power and transportation routes, Pike County, Ohio, was chosen in 1952 to complement the federal government's gaseous diffusion program already well under way at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Paducah, Kentucky. Construction of PORTS began in late 1952 with a mission to increase the national production of enriched uranium and maintain the nation's superiority in the development and use of nuclear energy.
In the 1960s, the site took on a more commercial focus, enriching uranium mainly for nuclear power plants. In 1993, the production facilities were leased by DOE to the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) - now Centrus Energy Corporation - to restructure and transition the government's uranium enrichment operations for nuclear power plants to the private sector. From 1991 until production ceased in 2001, PORTS produced only low-enriched uranium for commercial power plants. In 2011, USEC returned the gaseous diffusion plant facilities to DOE for D&D.
PORTS consisted of three massive uranium process buildings (X-333, X-330 and X-326) which housed the gaseous diffusion process equipment, as well as hundreds of supporting facilities. The process buildings had a combined length of approximately one and a half miles (2.4 kilometers) over about 93 acres.
More than 2,200 workers are employed at the site, making it one of the largest employment drivers in the region. Currently workers are continuing deactivation of the X-330 Process Building and are nearly complete with deactivation at the X-333 Process Building. Demolition of the X-326 Process Building was completed in 2022.