Vermont company wins $418 million bid to dismantle first-ever nuclear carrier

By Ted Cohen

A Vernon, Vermont firm has won a plum assignment - deactivating the nation's first nuclear aircraft carrier.

The contract awarded NorthStar Maritime Dismantlement Services is not only lucrative - $418.5 million - but historic.

The contract entails completely dismantling, recycling and disposing of the former USS Enterprise.

The legendary, now-retired carrier was known throughout its 51-year career as the “Big E.”

The work set to take more than four years with a completion date of September 2030.

Commissioned in 1961, Enterprise was the only aircraft carrier the Navy ever built with eight separate nuclear reactors, a design choice that gave the ship enormous power but also made it uniquely complicated to eventually take apart, according to Colton Jones of defence-blog.com.

“The carrier spent more than five decades at the center of American naval history, standing watch during the Cuban Missile Crisis blockade, flying combat missions over Vietnam, supporting operations during the fall of Saigon, and later deploying repeatedly in the post-9/11 era for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Jones reports.

In 1964, Enterprise joined the nuclear-powered destroyer USS Bainbridge and cruiser USS Long Beach to circumnavigate the entire globe without a single refueling stop, a feat called Operation Sea Orbit that showcased exactly what nuclear propulsion could do for a warship that never needed to worry about running out of fuel mid-ocean.

The original awarding of the dismantling contract to the Vermont company became the subject a year ago of a lawsuit filed by an unsuccessful bidder.

The rival bidder argued that a malfunction on the government’s procurement website had blocked its proposal from being submitted until several hours after the deadline.

The aggrieved bidder said the technical failure was entirely beyond its control.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims agreed with that argument and ordered the Navy to reopen the entire award process rather than let the original contract stand.

NorthStar won the contract again, but this time at $418,497,668, roughly 22 percent lower than its original winning bid

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