 |
|
Bechtel National Team Awarded $306 Million Contract to Design, Build, and Operate Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Maryland
Under terms of the $306 million contract, the BNI team will employ a unique neutralization technology to destroy the agent stored at the facility. Work on the project will begin immediately, with all of the syrupy, liquid substance scheduled to be disposed of by October 2004.
According to the contract, the BNI team will complete the design and construct the facility, acquire and install all needed equipment, systemize the finished structure and train its personnel, detoxify the deadly agent through a chemical neutralization method, and eventually close down the facility. All told, project activities will extend until November 2005.
A total of 1,817 ton-containers of mustard agent is now stored at Aberdeen, with each container holding an average of 1,787 pounds of the chemical agent. A ton container is a steel cylinder about 6.5 feet long with outside diameters of about 30 inches. In all, a total of 1,623 tons of the agent will be destroyed.
The neutralization process that will be used at Aberdeen involves first draining the mustard agent, then mixing it with hot water in a chemical reactor to "neutralize" it. Completing the process will be the biodegradation of the resulting neutralized agent (called "hydrolysate").
The U.S. government's Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program stipulates that all of the nation's chemical agents must be destroyed by April 2007. At the same time, Public Law 99-145 stipulates that the Defense Department is required to destroy lethal chemical agents and munitions through demilitarization programs that are "safe for workers, the public, and the environment."
Other members of the Bechtel National team at Aberdeen include Battelle Memorial Institute, Waste Management, General Physics, Horne Engineering, UXB, EA Engineering, IEM, and Upper Chesapeake Medical Services. Principal Vice President Jan Van Prooyen, with more than 30 years of experience in related technology fields, will serve as project manager for BNI.
Bechtel National's involvement in the Aberdeen project marks the latest in a series of Defense Department assignments in which the company has been assisting the governments of both the U.S. and the former Soviet Union in their efforts to dismantle a broad inventory of chemical weapons that both countries built up during the Cold War period.
Currently, the company also is constructing the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Alabama, a $300 million installation that is designed to destroy 2,000 tons of chemical agent stored onsite. In addition, BNI is dismantling 130 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch silos as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) agreements reached by the U.S. and former Soviet Union governments under terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START 1) Treaty. In a related assignment, the company also is building the Fissile Material Storage Facility, a $400 million complex in the South Urals region of Russia that will eventually provide safe storage for 25,000 canisters of fissile material that was formally contained in the Soviet nuclear arsenal.
FACT SHEET
Bechtel Profile
Bechtel National, the government contracting arm of Bechtel Group, Inc., has more than 6,000 personnel currently working on more than 75 active projects in 36 states and 11 countries that generate more than $1 billion of revenue annually. The company is ranked at the top of Engineering News-Record magazine's list of the "Top 200" environmental firms in the U.S.
Bechtel Group has provided engineering, construction, and related management services to customers in some 140 nations on all seven continents. Bechtel had revenues of $11.3 billion in 1997.
Bechtel Quotes
"The Aberdeen project is nationally important, extremely challenging, and a formidable assignment. It also represents the type of job that Bechtel, as prime contractor, has historically completed--large, difficult projects that make lasting contributions to our nation and the world," said Bechtel National President Lee A. McIntire.
"As we take on this important and difficult task, our focus will be on both safety and effectively destroying the chemical agent, while at the same time protecting the environment," said Project Manager Van Prooyen.
Bechtel Work History in Weapons Destruction
In addition to its work at Aberdeen and Anniston in the U.S., Bechtel in recent years has been involved in providing project and construction management services for several additional assignments in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, all of which are part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) agreement. The CTR program is a Department of Defense effort to assist former nations of the Soviet Union to either eliminate or to safely and securely store a broad inventory of nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction that was built up during the Cold War period.
The total value of these projects is more than $600 million. Among the more noteworthy are: Destruction of 176 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch silos and 20 launch control centers scattered throughout Ukraine, an effort that is costing more than $100 million. The drawing up of a comprehensive plan for the destruction of Russia's stockpile of chemical weapons, as well as a joint U.S.-Russian test of the destruction process itself. Included is the renovation of a Russian laboratory to meet U.S. standards. Total project cost: more than $20 million. A $14 million assignment to provide enhanced safety and security systems for a stockpile of nuclear weapons the Russian government has stored at 50 sites across the former Soviet Union. Providing permitting, design, procurement, and construction services for the construction of a facility near the Russian city of Votkinsk that will destroy 916 solid rocket motors and 319 missile canisters.