Perma-Fix Awarded $4.7M Contract For Treatment Of Depleted Uranium Chips
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: PESI; BSE) (Germany: PES.BE) today announced that it has been awarded a contract valued at over $4.7 million by Bechtel Hanford, Inc. of Richland, Wash., for the treatment and disposal of Depleted Uranium Chips in Oil and Stabilized Soil and Oil. The waste materials are now at Perma-Fix and the treatment process is underway.
Bechtel Hanford, Inc., the U.S. Department of Energy's Environmental Restoration Contractor at the 586-square-mile Hanford site in southeastern Washington State, excavated a total of 520 containers of depleted uranium chips and oil from the 618-4 Burial Ground at Hanford, in 1998 - 2002. Perma-Fix was awarded this contract in September 2003 to transport and treat the excavated depleted uranium chips and ensure that they were treated in a safe and regulatory compliant manner prior to return to Hanford for final disposal at the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. Perma-Fix had previously won a Basic Ordering Agreement issued by UT Battelle in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to address this problematic waste stream.
Perma-Fix has developed a phase separation and stabilization technique that allows for safe encapsulation of the depleted uranium, a pyrophoric radioactive metal, to a form that meets Hanford disposal site criteria.
The availability of this newest treatment system offers the government and commercial sectors a safe option for this problematic waste stream. Dr. Louis F. Centofanti, Perma-Fix chairman and chief executive officer, said: "We have undergone years of development and testing to safely and efficiently address a waste stream that has previously been considered an orphan waste without treatment capability in the U.S. commercial sector. Treatment of these wastes will ensure that buried and stored legacy material will now be able to be treated in accordance with regulatory requirements and will support DOE's effort to cleanup legacy wastes generated at sites throughout the United States."
Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. is a national environmental services company, providing unique mixed waste and industrial waste management services. The Company has increased its focus on the nuclear services segment, which provides radioactive and mixed waste treatment services to hospitals, research laboratories and institutions, numerous federal agencies including the Departments of Energy and Defense and nuclear utilities. The industrial services segment provides hazardous and non-hazardous waste treatment services for a diverse group of customers including Fortune 500 companies, numerous federal, state and local agencies and thousands of smaller clients. The Company operates nine major waste treatment facilities across the country.
Please visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.perma-fix.com.
SOURCE Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc.
Released October 14, 2003