CIRI subsidiary North Wind Group – which oversees several companies primarily focused on environmental, engineering, construction and technical consulting – notched a pair of impressive wins to begin the year.
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant
Along the banks of the Scioto River in southern Ohio sits the unremarkable town of Piketon. What is remarkable about this area is the industrial complex located just south – the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which is larger than the town itself.
A gaseous diffusion plant sounds innocuous enough, but this plant produced enriched uranium for both the nation’s nuclear weapons program and for the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Built in the early 1950s, the Cold War kept it in production for decades.
Today, the plant is in shutdown status and in the process of decontamination and decommissioning. That’s where North Wind Solutions, a subsidiary of North Wind Group, comes in. The company just won a significant five-year Infrastructure Support Services contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
“North Wind is proud to continue our support of the Department of Energy across the country and now at the Portsmouth site,” said John Bukowski, president of North Wind Solutions. “The selection of the North Wind-led joint venture is testament to North Wind’s outstanding track record of safety and performance on DOE projects.”
North Wind will primarily provide infrastructure support services including surveillance, maintenance, telecommunications, fleet management, health and safety programs and security.
Idaho Clean-up Project
A sprawling complex of research sites scattered through the desert, the Idaho Falls-based Idaho National Laboratory played a pivotal role in developing the nation’s nuclear power plants. But along with the advances in nuclear research, a concerted effort to clean up spent nuclear fuels and other waste at the site is underway.
The DOE just announced the award of a major cleanup contract. Dubbed the Idaho Clean-up Project Core, the five-year contract went to engineering giant Fluor, but North Wind Inc. is among the small team of subcontractors that will participate in the success of the project.
“We are thrilled with the announcement,” said Christopher Leichtweis, North Wind Group president. “North Wind has supported the clean-up mission at the Idaho site since the early days of the company and we are looking forward to working as part of the Fluor Idaho team to further advance that mission.”
The scope of work includes stabilizing and storing spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste, dispositioning transuranic waste, retrieving targeted buried waste, closing the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center tank farm, and operating and maintaining facilities such as the Radioactive Waste Management Complex and the Radioactive Scrap and Waste Facility.
A nationally recognized small business, Idaho Falls-headquartered North Wind Inc., a subsidiary of North Wind Group, provides engineering, construction, environmental and technical services to federal and state agencies and private industry.
North Wind Group was founded in 1997. Since then, it has grown to a group of companies that employs more than 500 highly-skilled professionals in more than 20 office locations throughout the country.
