The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) expects around July 29 to issue the request for proposals for decommissioning of the SM-1 nuclear reactor at Fort Belvoir, Va.
The contract will feature both firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-incentives 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 anticipated value of the award was not immediately available.
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. After deactivation and limited decontamination through 1974, the reactor was placed in safe-storage mode.
A decommissioning planning study is expected to be delivered early next year, after which the Army would issue a permit for decommissioning and demolition, Honerlah said.
Challenges specific to the upcoming 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.
There are a limited number of companies with experience in management of nuclear power plant decommissioning. In April, Brenda Barber, program manager for the Environmental and Munitions Design Center at the Baltimore District, said she anticipated six to eight bids.
APTIM Federal Services, which managed the STURGIS project, said it would decide whether to bid on the SM-1 decommissioning after seeing whether the RFP features nuclear indemnity.
An industry source said AECOM is eyeing a bid, though a spokesman said the company does not discuss potential procurements. The Los Angeles-based infrastructure company’s Management Services branch, which handles its nuclear decommissioning business, is scheduled to split off into a new company next year.
Holtec International, which is in the process of buying several commercial nuclear power plants for decommissioning, also said it does not discuss specific procurements. But a spokesman noted that the New Jersey-based energy technology business, currently facing scrutiny over tax breaks it has received in its home state, is considering other decommissioning projects.
Two other major players in the domestic decommissioning market, EnergySolutions and Accelerated Decommissioning Partners, did not respond to queries.
The point of contact for questions on the Fort Belvoir RFP is contract specialist James Greer, at [email protected].
Meanwhile, the Army Corps is scheduling site tours from Aug. 6 to Aug. 8 at Fort Greely for companies considering bidding on decommissioning the SM-1A reactor, according to a procurement update.
“The USACE team will host site tours for up to two contractors at a time. Each contractor may bring up to five (5) people,” Barber wrote in a project update sent to stakeholders on Tuesday. “The tours will take approximately two hours. The site visits are for those companies interested in discussing alternatives, concerns, and suggestions relative to a future Request for Proposal (RFP) for this project.”
That RFP is expected in 2021, following market research due to wrap up this month and acquisition planning into the start of 2020, Honerlah said at the Decommissioning Strategy Forum. The contract is due to be awarded as soon as 2022, with actual decommissioning starting that year or in 2023. The contract, for up to seven years of work, will be cost-reimbursable, possibly with some fixed-price components. The work will be similar to decommissioning at Fort Belvoir, with challenges including the harsh weather and isolated location.
The SM-1A reactor operated from 1962 to 1972, then was entombed following limited decommissioning. Extracting large parts from the grout used for that process will be another challenge not seen at the Virginia site.
