S.D. Company Awarded Study on Nuclear Dump
Science Applications International Corp., a defense electronics and contract research firm that is based here, has been awarded a three-year, $111-million contract from the federal Department of Energy to evaluate the Yucca Mountain area 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas as a possible site for a nuclear waste dump.
The contract includes seven one-year options that could make it worth $469 million to Science Applications over a 10-year period. Company officials refused to comment Wednesday on how many jobs may result from the contract, saying it will release additional information Monday.
Yucca Mountain is one of three sites being considered by the DOE as a repository for radioactive nuclear fuel. The other sites are in Hanford, Wash., and Deaf Smith, Tex. The Nevada site is near the DOE’s underground nuclear explosion test facility.
The DOE has now commissioned studies of all three sites and will reach a decision after completion of the evaluations, perhaps as early as 1993.
Last March, Management Analysis Co., another San Diego company, received a three-year, $22-million contract to assist the DOE in evaluating the Hanford site.
The contract with Science Applications calls for the firm to select a specific site in the Yucca Mountain area based on geological, environmental and technical data.
