Barring a last-minute announcement from the Department of Energy, 2018 will end much like it started: With many major contractors waiting to see who will win a multibillion-dollar, 10-year contract for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The most recent procurement schedule for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, from Nov. 19, suggested the award would be issued by the end of November. That didn’t happen, the latest schedule slip in a procurement for which the draft solicitation first went out in March 2016.
BWX Technologies-led Savannah River EcoManagement landed the initial $4.7 billion award in October 2017. But in February, the Government Accountability Office upheld a bid protest by a competing team comprised of AECOM and CH2M, which successfully argued DOE had not properly ensured the winner’s technical approach for liquid waste operations would actually work.
The Energy Department subsequently had the three original bidders, including a Fluor-Westinghouse team, submit revised proposals. There have been several false alarms that the new award was about to arrive, but it has yet to materialize.
There is no shortage of theories on why it is taking so long, one industry source said.
The Energy Department doesn’t want to lose another bid protest, even though sources believe the reissued award would again draw at least one objection. Both losing teams protested the first award to EcoManagement, though the GAO upheld only one. The Energy Department is taking its time to ensure the next award is airtight, sources said.
The Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), which the new contractor would eventually operate, is also not yet operational. Construction and initial operations contractor Parsons is still working on an updated cost and deadline baseline for the facility. The Energy Department had previously hoped it would be ready for operation this year, which is another variable to be addressed.
Finally, it is not certain which branch of the Energy Department will be the Savannah River Site’s “landlord” in coming years. The DOE cleanup office and the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are working on a joint study into future operations of SRS. If the NNSA ends up overseeing SRS, it is conceivable liquid waste could be handled as a subcontract to the management and operations contractor, the source said.
While rumors are all over the map, “the bottom line is there is no decision,” a second source said.
“It just puts a lot of stress on the people involved,” a third source said Thursday, alluding to the “key personnel” in the bid proposals who are in “suspended animation.”
The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on SRS waste contract, and generally does not comment on procurement matters.
Whatever team ultimately wins, it will be responsible for treating and stabilizing over 30 million gallons of liquid waste produced by Cold War nuclear weapons work at Savannah River.
Amid the current state of limbo, AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation retains the work under a contract extension through March 2019. The total estimated cost for the 10-month extension is $432 million, DOE has indicated. The original 10-year contract for SRR was worth $5 billion.
The Energy Department also froze procurement in October for a potential $15 billion operations and management contract for Savannah River while the NNSA and Environmental Management office complete theit study.
In the interim, Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) received a 12-month contract extension this summer to keep it on the job through July 2019.
The contract extensions at Savannah River are mirrored by a number of others around the DOE complex, both large and small, during the past year.
- This spring, the Energy Department announced AECOM-led Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) would receive a one-year extension to its expiring 10-year, $6.1 billion waste tank management contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The extension, valued at about $629 million, keeps WRPS on the job through September 2019. It manages 177 underground tanks holding 56 million gallons of radioactive waste.
- In June, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation got word that its Plateau Remediation Contract at Hanford was being renewed another year through September 2019. The extension is valued at $500 million. The Energy Department has also issued a draft request for proposals for the potential 10-year, $12 billion Central Plateau contract. The current contract includes shoring up the PUREX Plant Tunnel 2, which is at high risk of collapse; and demolishing the Plutonium Finishing Plant.
- Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth in September received its final extension, through March 2021, on the current 10-year, $3.7 billion decontamination and decommissioning contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The company is tearing down and cleaning up 10 million square feet of contaminated structures at the old uranium enrichment complex.
- In November, the Energy Department issued Kentucky-based Swift & Staley an $88 million, 22-month contract extension to continue providing infrastructure support services at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky. The extension retains the contractor through Sept. 30, 2020. The entire five-year contract is worth about $185 million. The work includes building maintenance and upkeep of grounds and parking lots.
- In recent weeks, DOE has moved to keep three contractors providing technical support services to Portsmouth, Paducah, and the Portsmouth-Paducah-Project Office in Lexington, Ky., around through March 2019. After a bid protest, the agency is rethinking its initial award of a five-year, $137 million consolidated contract to a Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve) subsidiary. As a result, the DOE is maintaining individual contracts for Pro2Service, Strategic Management Solutions, and RSI EnTech.
- However, the two major contracts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico did change hands in 2018. Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) became the new legacy cleanup prime in late April, with a potential 10-year, $1.39 billion contract. On Nov. 1, Triad National Security, a partnership of Battelle, the University of California, and Texas A&M University, took over as the new management and operations contractor at LANL. The Triad contract is potentially worth about $20 billion over 10 years if all options are exercised. Los Alamos National Security had previously held both contracts.
