More than 40 companies signed up to attend an industry session last month to learn more about a contract for further cleanup of the Central Plateau at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
There were more 90 registered participants representing companies including AECOM, Atkins, AVANTech, Bechtel, BWX Technologies, Fluor, Honeywell, Navarro Research and Engineering, North Wind, Orano, Westinghouse Government Services, and Jacobs Engineering – parent company to the present cleanup contractor.
The online registration list did not seem to include anyone identifying themselves as with incumbent CH2M Hill, although there were four people listed with Jacobs. Contractors didn’t need to attend the sessions in order to bid on the business.
The current contract, held by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation, is scheduled to expire on Sept. 30. However, the contractor is expected to receive an extension of up to one year on an award already valued at $4.5 billion, plus $1.3 billion of work assigned as economic stimulus during the Obama administration.
In July, the Energy Department said it expected to issue a draft request for proposals for continued remediation of the Central Plateau by Sept. 30, after first holding the industry meeting in mid-August. The registration list was posted Aug. 27.
Angela Watmore, a senior adviser at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, said Thursday the upcoming draft RFP will demonstrate the agency’s efforts to “reinvigorate the completion mindset” at its nuclear cleanup sites. Bidders will be directed to explain how they will “get us to completion faster,” Watmore said at the National Cleanup Workshop in Alexandria, Va.
The CH2M contract includes a host of cleanup jobs at the contaminated former plutonium production facility, including decommissioning and demolishing facilities, waste site remediation, and management of transuranic waste.
CH2M also responsible for much of the remaining Hanford River Corridor cleanup.
The Central Plateau job has had its share of problems, including a spread of radioactive contamination last December around demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant. The incident largely halted the demolition project, which appears set to ramp up again starting as soon as next week.
