Energy Dept. Dismayed by Uranium Sale

When the government put enriched uranium estimated to be worth $10 million up for sale, it expected a good return. Instead, the U.S. Treasury received a scant $76,051, raising the ire of Energy Department investigators.

A private contractor, who handled the sale, reaped millions of dollars, according to auditors.

The department’s inspector general concluded that the contractor, who prepared and packaged the uranium and negotiated the deal, was paid $3.4 million for “questionable costs” that should never have been allowed.

Fluor Fernald Inc. also received a $675,430 fee for handling the deal, nearly 10 times what the government made on the 1997 sale, said the inspector general’s report, which was recently made public.

The contractor and the Energy Department office at the Fernald weapon plant near Cincinnati, where the uranium is being disposed of as part of a general cleanup project, defended the deal.

“We don’t think the sale was a bad deal. We told the IG [inspector general] that, and that’s still our position,” said Glenn Griffiths, deputy director of the DOE site office at the Fernald facility. He said the alternative was to declare the uranium a waste and face huge disposal costs.

Under the agreement, neither the name of the buyer nor the specific sale price can be made public for five years, said Griffiths. Other department sources said the firm is a foreign uranium fuel provider.