The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) expects around July 29 to issue the request for proposals for decommissioning of the long-retired SM-1 nuclear power reactor at Fort Belvoir, Va.
The contract will feature both firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-incentive fee components, according to a presolicitation notice issued Monday. It will have a five-year term.
The Army Corps is scheduled to review proposals from October 2019 to April 2020, with a contract award due sometime from May to July of next year, Hans Honerlah, chief of the Radiation Safety Office for the USACE Baltimore District, said last month at the ExchangeMonitor’s Decommissioning Strategy Forum.
The decommissioning contract would cover operations including project management; extraction of the reactor parts and radiologically contaminated materials; transport and disposal of the waste; radiological surveys; demolition; and site restoration.
The Fort Belvoir facility is one of four reactors covered under the U.S. Army’s deactivated nuclear power plant program. The PM-2A reactor at Camp Century in Greenland and the MH-1A reactor on the STURGIS barge have been decommissioned, leaving the SM-1 at Fort Belvoir and the SM-1A at Fort Greely, Alaska.
The SM-1 pressurized-water reactor operated from 1957 to 1973 at the Army base less than 20 miles from Washington, D.C. While it did produce power, the plant’s primary purpose was to train personnel to operate other facilities in the Army Nuclear Power Program.
Challenges specific to this project include the small area to conduct decommissioning, limited routes for transporting material to and from the site, and the closeness to the nation’s capital, according to Honerlah.
More than 40 potential vendors attended an industry day in February, he said. The Army Corps said Monday it will only consider companies registered in the federal System for Award Management database.
The point of contact for questions is contract specialist James Greer, at [email protected].
