YAKIMA — The federal government has awarded a new contract to handle safety and security, information technology and road work at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site.
The Department of Energy announced Wednesday that an alliance of companies known as Mission Support Alliance LLC, including Lockheed Martin Integrated Technology, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., and Wackenhut Services Inc., would oversee those activities at south-central Washington’s Hanford nuclear reservation.
The value of the five-year contract, which has the option of being extended for another five years, is estimated at $3 billion over 10 years.
The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Today, it is the nation’s most contaminated site, with cleanup expected to last decades.
The 586-square-mile site’s central plateau once housed five chemical separation buildings and other facilities that separated and recovered plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.
The Energy Department awarded two other contracts earlier this year to clean up that area.
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