After about two years of bid protests, incumbent Centerra Group recently started its 60-day transition into a new 10-year contract to provide security to the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., an agency spokesperson said Thursday.
The Notice to Proceed was issued on May 15 and Centerra should start its new decade-long, $1-billion contract around July 14, the spokesperson said via email in response to an Exchange Monitor inquiry.
July 14 marks the expiration date for the paramilitary security contract that Centerra has held since October 2009. Thanks to extensions Centerra has received while various contract challenges played out with DOE and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the existing Centerra contract is worth about $1.6 billion, according to DOE Office of Environmental Management’s most recent list of major contracts.
The GAO on May 9 rejected a bid protest by Securitas-led SRS Critical Infrastructure Security’s (SCIS). GAO was not convinced by the SCIS argument that DOE had unreasonably failed to explain why it awarded the billion-dollar business to SCIS two years earlier, only to reevaluate proposals following another bid protest and go with the incumbent after all.
SRS Critical Infrastructure Security challenged DOE’s Centerra award in January. In February 2021, DOE had awarded the security contract to SRS Critical Infrastructure Security. Despite withstanding a bid protest by a second rival bidder, DOE eventually vacated the SCIS award.
The new contract has a base period of five years, including the 60-day transitions, one option period of three years, and a second option period with two years.
Like the site’s management and operations contractor, the Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, DOE has elected to keep an incumbent in place while transferring landlord control of the federal complex to the National Nuclear Security Administration from the Office of Environmental Management. That change is expected to be finalized around fiscal year 2025.
