A company hired to supply nuclear construction-grade rebar to the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, or MOX, project at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., instead knowingly substituted standard, commercial-grade rebar that it then falsely certified met the Nuclear Quality Assurance-1 specifications, the U.S. Dept. of Justice claims in a lawsuit. The DOJ intervened in the lawsuit originally filed under whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act.
Denise Vaughn, a spokesperson for Energy & Process Corp. (E&P) of Tucker, Ga., told ENR, “We are very disappointed to learn of the filing. We deny any wrongdoing, and look forward to presenting our case.” The MOX project began construction in 2007, with an original completion date of 2016. The Dept. of Energy claims the project is as much as $12 billion over budget, and likely still years away from completion.