The U.S. Department of Energy says it has given Restoration Services Inc. a contract for assistance in decommissioning an Ohio nuclear facility.
The contract requires the Oak Ridge, Tenn., woman-owned company to provide technical services for the remediation, decontamination and decommissioning of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at the Energy Department's site in Piketon, Ohio.
The contract is valued at approximately $67 million over five years — a three-year base period with the option to extend it for another two years, officials said.
The department said the contract is the first of three that will start the decontamination and decommissioning process, which will eventually lead to the closing of the plant in the coming decades.
The site is a 3,714-acre federal reservation in south-central Ohio. Officials said the plant was constructed by the Atomic Energy Commission during the early 1950s to enrich the fissionable U-235 isotope from natural uranium to various product concentrations, including weapons-grade uranium.
