28 Aug 2020

Army Corps to decommission and dismantle historic, deactivated nuclear power plant at Fort Belvoir

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, has awarded a $67.98 million contract to joint venture APTIM AECOM Decommissioning LLC, of Alexandria for the decommissioning, dismantling and disposal of the deactivated SM-1 nuclear power plant — the Army’s first nuclear reactor and first facility in America to provide nuclear-generated power for a sustained period to the commercial grid.

25 Sep 2017

Pioneer in military use of nuclear power provides insight on facility to be decommissioned

Retired Lt. Gen. Ernest Graves was just a major when he was assigned to the SM-1, the first-of-its-kind nuclear power plant that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was building on Fort Belvoir in the late 1950s. At the time, Major Graves was tasked with overseeing the final stages of construction, then operating and training the staff for the reactor. The SM-1 was the first nuclear reactor in the country to generate power connected to the commercial grid when it achieved its first criticality in April 1957. Sixty years later, a 93-year-old Graves and his wife, Nancy, visited the facility to discuss its history with professionals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other Department of Defense agencies charged with handling nuclear-related missions for the military.