THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 15, 1996 TAG: 9608150541
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 36 lines
A team led by Raytheon Co. that included Newport News Shipbuilding failed to win a $5 billion, 5-year contract to manage and clean up a Washington state nuclear-weapons plant.
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded the contract to a competing team led by the engineering firm Fluor Daniel.
Looking to diversify, Newport News Shipbuilding wants to put its expertise to use cleaning up the nation's nuclear-weapons production sites. The yard builds and services nuclear-powered warships.
The Energy Department estimates it will spend at least $275 million between now and 2050 cleaning up the nation's Cold War legacy.
The General Accounting Office estimates the cost at closer to $1 trillion.
Newport News Shipbuilding aims to get a piece of that lucrative business through its nuclear-services unit, Newport News Industrial Corp.
As part of Raytheon's team, Newport News Industrial would have moved and stored 2,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and 50 million gallons of contaminated waste at the Hanford Site in Washington.
While the shipyard's team lost, ``we received very high marks from the Department of Energy in our evaluation,'' said shipyard spokeswoman Jerri Fuller Dickseski.
``So we're continuing to keep DOE work as part of long-term strategic diversification,'' Dickseski said. ``There are other opportunities coming up that we will be vying for.''
Indeed, the Energy Department is accepting bids for $8 billion of work at its Oak Ridge, Tenn. facility, home to a national laboratory, a nuclear-weapons destruction plant and a nuclear-materials storage facility. by CNB