Less than a month after officially calling off a $13-billion liquid-waste cleanup award at the Hanford Site, the Department of Energy has started procurement of a replacement pact called the Hanford Integrated Tank Disposition Contract, with a draft solicitation expected by March.
The draft request for proposals (RFP) will, unlike the now-revoked tank-waste contract awarded to a BWX Technologies-led team last year, include the direct-feed low-activity waste work planned at Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant, which Bechtel National is building.
That’s according to the Tuesday notice DOE’s Office of Environmental Management posted on a federal procurement website. The new integrated tank disposition contract will replace the Tank Operations Contract held by Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions. The incumbent is on the job at least through September.
Just before Christmas, DOE cancelled its May award of the multibillion-dollar tank closure contract to Hanford Works Restoration, a group led by Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies. Other members of that group were Fluor, Intera and Richland, Wash.-based DBD.
The DOE said then that it wanted to combine the planned closure of Hanford’s 177 underground tanks of liquid radioactive waste with the direct-feed, low-activity waste campaign to turn waste into glass form by 2023.
The Christmas-time cancellation followed a protest earlier in 2020 by losing bidders. After the protest, DOE revealed that it would consider whether the BWX Technologies team’s employment of a now-retired DOE Hanford manager “gave the awardee an unfair competitive advantage or created an appearance of impropriety.”
The DOE has created a new website for the planned procurement. The DOE contracting officer is Clare Rexroad, [email protected].
