South Dorset, UK – The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has selected MWH to front-end engineer the decommissioning of the Winfrith Technology Centre’s two remaining nuclear reactors located in South Dorset. One of the first contracts of its kind to be awarded in the UK, the benchmark project is expected to place UKAEA at the forefront of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning and Demolition Programme and bring forward the final decommissioning effort at Winfrith by up to 30 years.
MWH will lead a consortium of specialist sub-consultants on the project, providing front-end engineering services to design minimum-risk processes for decommissioning and demolishing the two nuclear reactors. The project, which will run for an initial period of 5 years from June 2004, will be worth more than £2m in consultancy fees to the company.
Claude Buttram III, MWH’s Project Leader, comments: “Our team has extensive experience in decommissioning nuclear facilities safely and speedily. By leveraging our knowledge and resources, and implementing our world-leading program management approaches, gained across a variety of sectors, we will help develop new standards of best practice in the UK.”
MWH has undertaken similar projects in recent years including the $106 million decommissioning of NASA’s Plum Brook Research Reactor in Sandusky, Ohio. It is anticipated that maximizing this experience of accelerated reactor decommissioning will realize significant savings in time and money for UKAEA, enabling UKAEA to bring forward its Winfrith program by 30 years.
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About MWH
Headquartered in Broomfield, Colo., MWH is a private, employee-owned firm with approximately 6,000 employees worldwide. The company provides water, wastewater, energy, natural resource, program management, consulting and construction services to industrial, municipal and government clients in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, India, Asia and the Pacific Rim. For more information about MWH, please visit the company’s Web site at www.mwhglobal.com.
