The Department of Energy (DOE) said it will extend CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Co.’s contract for environmental cleanup at the Hanford Site by another five years. CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Co. is responsible primarily for demolishing former plutonium facilities, cleaning up contaminated soil, managing solid radioactive waste, and monitoring and cleaning up contaminated groundwater at the 586-square-mile site in southeast Washington State. The value of the five-year contract extension is approximately $2.2 billion.

In 2008, DOE awarded CH2M HILL a cost-plus, award-fee contract valued at approximately $4.5 billion over ten years, including a five-year base period with the option to extend the contract for another five years.

The base period, or first five years, of CH2M HILL’s contract is currently valued at about $3.7 billion, including $1.3 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding that DOE provided since 2009.

According to a clause in the contract, DOE must wait until at least April 2013 to formally extend the contract but has announced its intent to do so.

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