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URS Corporation (NYSE: URS) today announced that a team led by the Company has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to manage the Yucca Mountain Project in Nevada. The team would manage a scope of work with a maximum value of approximately $2.5 billion, if all options are exercised. The performance based, cost-plus award-fee contract will cover a five-year base performance period, with an additional five-year option. The URS-led team, USA Repository Services, LLC, includes the Washington Division of URS, Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure, Inc., and AREVA Federal Services, Inc. USA Repository Services, LLC, will be responsible for completing the detailed design of a nuclear waste repository, defending and updating a license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), operating Yucca Mountain facilities prior to the NRC's Construction Authorization, and supporting construction management and operation of the Yucca Mountain repository.

Nuclear Management Partners Ltd is a joint venture comprising URS Corporation - Washington Division, AMEC and AREVA. URS Corporation - Washington Division (formerly Washington Group International) is a provider of planning, engineering design, construction, technical, management, and operations and maintenance services to public and private sector clients worldwide. It employs 25,000 people. Washington and URS are the main sponsors of Whitehaven Rugby League.

DOE announced today that Savannah River Remediation, a limited-liability group headed by URS, won a liquid-waste contract valued at about $3.3 billion. The contract takes effect April 1, 2009 and has a base of six years, with a potential for two more years. The team consists of URS Washington Division; Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services; Bechtel National; CH2M Hill; and AREVA Federal Services. Designated subcontractors include EnergySolutions Federal EPC and Washington Safety Management Solutions.

URS Corp said on Thursday it had been chosen by Hitachi for an engineering, procurement and construction contract for a new nuclear project in Victoria County, Texas. The project for Exelon Corp (EXC.N), the largest U.S. nuclear plant operator, includes two 1,350-megawatt reactors based on the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor design from GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GE.N) (6501.T). URS Chief Executive Martin Koffel, announcing the deal on a conference call to discuss the company's quarterly results, said he was not in a position to provide further details.

The Parsons Corporation filed a protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office on Monday demanding that the office re-examine awarding Savannah River Remediation the liquid waste contract over their own bid. A URS Corp.-led group, Savannah River Remediation (SRR) was awarded the $3.3 billion Department of Energy contract to manage the liquid waste at the Savannah River Site on Dec. 7. According to the Department of Energy, Parsons filed a protest with the immediate impact of putting on hold the transition from one URS group - Washington Savannah River Company - to another - SRR.

HOUSTON, May 29 (Reuters) - URS Corp (URS.N: Quote, Profile, Research), an engineering and construction company, said on Thursday it was leading a group that won a $7.1 billion U.S. government contract to clean up underground waste tanks in Washington State.

The Cumbria Cabinet's complete reversal of any semblance of democracy is worthy of the most agile circus acrobat. The nuclear acrobatics continue in the news reports justifying the decision to bury high level nuclear waste by saying : "This is the option being taken in the US at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, where highly radioactive fuel will go underground. The Yucca Mountain project involved URS Washington, a key partner in Sellafield's parent body organisation NMP". Sounds wonderfully cosy and reasurring doesn't it? But the truth is somewhat different with lawsuits against URS Washington and deep disposal of high level nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain now off the agenda because of contamination risks to the regions water, soil and air.

Washington Savannah River Co., the former management and operations contractor for the Savannah River, S.C., nuclear site, has agreed to pay the federal government $2.4 million to resolve allegations of fraud. The U.S. Justice Department alleged that the company, owned by URS Corp., failed to disclose substantial projected increases in required pension fund contributions during 2003 contract negotiations. As part of the settlement, the contractor will withdraw claims for an additional $35.6 million for the Department of Energy to cover the rise in its pension costs.

The Washington division of URS Corp. will lead a team cleaning up some 53 million gallons of radioactive waste in 177 underground tanks at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington.

The state of Oregon has fined URS, the contractor operating the incinerator at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, $111,000. Most of the fine is for violations of the facility's hazardous waste and air contaminant discharge permits as it began to burn mustard weapons agent and the agent containers. The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility has not incinerated any chemical weapons agent or containers for 40 days while it addresses the issue. "They are delaying operations to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Rich Duval of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's Chemical Demilitarization Program in Hermiston. URS's Washington Demilitarization Co. reported the problems to the state, including eight occasions when the plant exceeded its emissions limit for carbon monoxide as it began incinerating mustard agent.

The state of Oregon has fined URS, the contractor operating the incinerator at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, $111,000. Most of the fine is for violations of the facility's hazardous waste and air contaminant discharge permits as it began to burn mustard weapons agent and the agent containers. The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility has not incinerated any chemical weapons agent or containers for 40 days while it addresses the issue. "They are delaying operations to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Rich Duval of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's Chemical Demilitarization Program in Hermiston. URS's Washington Demilitarization Co. reported the problems to the state, including eight occasions when the plant exceeded its emissions limit for carbon monoxide as it began incinerating mustard agent.

URS has designed or built 49 nuclear power plants around the world. It expects most upcoming work of this type in the United States to be in the southeastern states.

EnergySolutions, Inc. announced today the award of the first of two contracts from Savannah River Remediation (SRR), LLC. Together these contracts will provide funding up to $56 Million over the next 8 years. EnergySolutions was named a subcontractor to the URS led SRR team, which won the Liquid Waste Operations contract at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site. "We appreciate the confidence the Savannah River Remediation (SRR) team has in EnergySolutions to perform this work," said Steve Creamer, CEO and Chairman of EnergySolutions. "We look forward to utilizing our vitrification technology to progress the clean up of the Savannah River site."

The operator of Sellafield, Britain's biggest nuclear complex, was today handed a fine and legal costs totalling more than £100,000 following safety lapses which led to the radioactive contamination of staff. The successful prosecution of Sellafield Ltd by the Health and Safety Executive will tarnish the reputation of an industry trying to win public confidence for a new generation of power plants. The business, controlled by state-owned British Nuclear Group when the incident occurred in July 2007, has since been taken over by three private contractors, Amec, Areva and URS Washington, who work under the Nuclear Management Partners banner.

The operator of Sellafield, Britain's biggest nuclear complex, was today handed a fine and legal costs totalling more than £100,000 following safety lapses which led to the radioactive contamination of staff. The successful prosecution of Sellafield Ltd by the Health and Safety Executive will tarnish the reputation of an industry trying to win public confidence for a new generation of power plants. The business, controlled by state-owned British Nuclear Group when the incident occurred in July 2007, has since been taken over by three private contractors, Amec, Areva and URS Washington, who work under the Nuclear Management Partners banner.

A U.S. Department of Energy decision on the Savannah River Site's liquid waste operations could come as early as the end of the month, new Washington Savannah River Co. President Steve Piccolo said Monday. WSRC and its parent company, URS Washington Division, transitioned the site's management operations to Savannah River Nuclear Solutions in early August. However, WSRC still has a 2,200-person workforce at SRS for the liquid waste operation.

Waste Control Specialists (WCS), a subsidiary of Valhi, has awarded a contract to URS to lead the design and construction of a new low-level radioactive waste (LLW) facility in Andrews County, Texas.

Washington Closure Hanford president Chuck Spencer will become president of the tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions on Oct. 1. He will replace River Protection Solutions president and project manager Bill Johnson, who is retiring. In a Tuesday e-mail to Washington River Protection Solutions employees, Johnson said retirement will allow him to spend more time with his family. Spencer's move from Washington Closure to Washington River Protection Solutions is considered a transfer within the URS Corp. That company partly owns Washington River Protection Solutions and Washington Closure.

A fight over explosive documents in a nuclear-smuggling case escalated on Thursday when investigators raided a federal building and seized a safe and key. Lawyers, parliamentarians and the federal government are all locked in a showdown over what should happen to documents related to the Tinner affair, particularly those that contain plans for a nuclear bomb. Urs, Marco and Friedrich Tinner, engineers with ties to a centrifuge business, have been the subject of allegations that they contributed to a nuclear smuggling ring run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme. The Tinners have maintained their innocence

Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. said Tuesday it has won a $19.2 million contract to clean up a U.S. Energy Department test facility in upstate New York, the Energy Separation Process Research Unit. URS Corp., which awarded the contract, will help perform the work. The job includes sorting, packaging, loading, rail transport and treatment, as well as disposal of soil, debris and mixed waste. Work will begin immediately, and the project will take an estimated 24 months.

A parliamentary control delegation has rejected plans by the cabinet to destroy sensitive documents related to an international nuclear smuggling ring. The committee called on the government to seek an acceptable solution with justice authorities for about 100 pages of evidence linked to an investigation of three Swiss engineers suspected of smuggling nuclear weapons technology. "There is no international obligation to destroy the documents," said Hansruedi Stadler, a Christian Democratic senator, on Tuesday. The committee said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed that Switzerland was capable of safely storing the file, which contains more than 1,000 pages including documents on bomb designs, until a court rules on the case of Urs Tinner, his brother Marco and their father Friedrich. They are suspected of having links to the nuclear smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Kahn, the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, and are believed to have worked as undercover agents for the United States. Last week, the government ordered the quick destruction of sensitive material

A $90 million project has provided more confidence that Hanford's one-of-a-kind, $12.2 billion vitrification plant should operate as expected, according to the Department of Energy. DOE and its contractors just completed the first phase of testing at the Pretreatment Engineering Platform, a quarter-scale model of the process that will be used at the vit plant to separate Hanford tank waste into high-level waste and low-activity waste for separate treatment. DOE's goal is to minimize the amount of costly high-level waste canisters produced. "The facility has verified some of the key processes at the vitrification plant will work," said Bill Gay, a URS employee and assistant project director for the plant, formally called the Waste Treatment Plant.