Original projections estimated the Fernald clean-up would take 30 years and cost $12 billion. When it was shut down, the Fernald processing facility had over 250 radioactively contaminated structures residing on over 2.5 million cubic yards of heavily contaminated soil, with an excess of 1,500 tons of nuclear material held up in aging process lines and vessels. Fluor provided project management, engineering, procurement, and construction services to retrieve, package, and remove this waste. Fluor also decontaminated and demolished the buildings, constructing new facilities to process the waste.
To meet the accelerated clean-up schedule at Fernald, Fluor developed a 13-part project management strategy to safely work through cost efficiencies utilizing available funding. Implementation of this strategy required a dramatic culture change at Fernald – from a government mindset to an entrepreneurial/commercial model. Site safety dramatically improved and several creative and cost-saving solutions were implemented using innovative approaches. For example, Fluor constructed a 75-acre onsite disposal facility to contain 2.9 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris.
After 14 years, Fluor declared physical completion of Fernald on October 29, 2006, two months ahead of the already accelerated target schedule and below the target cost. In recognition of this success, the Project Management Institute chose the Fernald Closure Project as the 2007 Project of the Year from candidate projects worldwide. Today, the former Fernald site is a wildlife sanctuary featuring prairies and wetlands.