The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Monday it expects this year to complete the extended, protested contract award process for environmental remediation of the radioactively contaminated Shallow Land Disposal Area in Pennsylvania.
A Jacobs Engineering subsidiary in April 2017 received a $350 million contract through the Army Corps’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) program for cleanup of 21,300 cubic yards of soil, debris, and other radiological waste left in Parks Township from work under contracts for the Atomic Energy Commission, largely for fuel for nuclear submarines and power plants.
However, at least one contract protest was filed with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and the Army last August said it would reconsider the bids that had been submitted. That process should be complete in 2018, said Capt. Brian Molloy, project manager at Shallow Land.
Molloy said he could not discuss details of the protest or protests, including the companies involved and their objections to the contract awarded to Jacobs Field Services North America. An Army Corps press release last August cited protests from “Unsuccessful bidders.”
At the time, the Army said the impact of the protests on the cleanup schedule was not immediately known. Molloy said Monday that after the contractor is in place, it would spend one year to 18 months preparing a cleanup work plan. The actual remediation is expected to take eight to 10 years, but that depends on what the Army Corps and its contractor find when remediation begins, he added.
“With the uncertainty of what’s in the ground there there was always uncertainty of how long it’s going to take,” according to Molloy.
