Private Contractors Near Hanford Bids

The U.S. Energy Department is getting ready to take bids from private companies interested in processing Hanford nuclear reservation radioactive waste into glass logs, officials said Friday.

This will be the first time private companies will invest their own money in equipment and buildings to handle waste at Hanford, and be paid solely on what they produce, said Jackson Kinzer, DOE assistant manager of the tank waste remediation program.

“We’re purchasing a service and the service will be contractor-owned and contractor-operated. Payment to the contractor is only after he has produced to specifications with his equipment,” Kinzer said.

Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary decided Sept. 22 to handle the tankwaste treatment by privatizing the procedure, Kinzer said. Hanford officials announced the decision Friday.

The request for bids will go out officially in March, and the DOE initially will select three companies for the project next September, Kinzer said.

After the companies each design plants, DOE officials in Richland will choose two of the three contractors to actually build “proof of concept” facilities to melt radioactive waste into glass logs that eventually would be buried.

Those plants would handle about 20 tons of waste per day for about five years, he said.

About 3 percent of the approximately 240,000 metric tons of waste being held in 177 tanks at Hanford would be processed during this phase.

After the initial facilities prove the concept works, larger facilities that can handle 100 tons of waste per day would be built to process the rest of the waste, he said.

This part of the Hanford cleanup is scheduled to be completed by the year 2028.

The key to saving money is the competition between the two facilities, each run by a different contractor, Kinzer said.

“If one of those two plants should have a better price, they’ll get more of our business,” he said.

Kinzer said DOE has met with six companies that have expressed interest in doing the work.