The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced on 26 May that Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, a CH2M-led company with partners Fluor Corporation and BWX Technologies, had been awarded the Paducah deactivation and remediation (D&R) contract at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky. Work under the contract includes facility characterisation and stabilisation, groundwater remediation, waste operations, utility operations and surveillance and maintenance. The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, leased from the DOE and operated by Centrus (formerly USEC), produced enriched uranium from 1952, originally for military reactors and weapons refining and later for nuclear fuel. From 1993 to 2013, the plant was leased for conducting gaseous diffusion operations by the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC). It was then handed back to DOE for decontamination and decommissioning.

The performance based contract is valued at approximately $1.5bn over 10 years. The base term is five years valued at approximately $750m, followed by three-year and two-year option periods, valued at an approximate total of $750m combined. A transition period is scheduled to begin on June 2017.

The D&R contract includes management of over 650 structures, properties, and buildings and will optimise short- and long-term surveillance and maintenance costs to allow for additional stabilisation, deactivation and remediation activities, reducing risk and future demolition costs.