Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
1/17/2014
The Department of Energy late last week began conducting market research to help determine whether a new planned contract for design of the Oak Ridge Sludge Processing Facility Buildouts should be set-aside for small businesses. The sludge buildouts at the site’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center are designed to process about 2,000 cubic meters of sludge from Oak Ridge’s Melton Valley Storage Tanks. The design contract could be worth about $30 million, according to the sources sought notice. “As part of the acquisition strategy, DOE intends to procure services from an Architect and Engineering (A-E) contractor for the design of the Sludge Processing Facility Buildouts, including the design, construction and operation of a test facility for purposes of advancing the technical maturity level of the equipment and systems and complete design for [the Sludge Processing Facility Buildouts],” a DOE sources sought notice states.
DOE is considering setting aside the work for firms meet a $14 million size standard, and responses to the sources sought notice are due Jan. 24. The selected company would also provide support services for the construction of the facility. Planning of the plant had been handled by TWPC Contractor Wastren Advantage Inc. until DOE issued a stop work order to the contractor last fall. Last October, the Office of Environmental Management’s Jack Surash said that the design and construction work would likely be broken up into separate contracts (WC Monitor, Vol. 24 No. 42). “We’ve learned our lesson from the bigger construction projects. We are not going to put out a contract when the technology is not mature. So we’ll probably break this into chunks,” he said.
Last week’s sources sought notice states, “The construction and operation of a test facility is required to support final facility design. The process approach includes mobilizing the sludge from storage tanks using supernate, water or acid enabling slurry transfer to the processing facility for mixing, stabilization and solidification. The sludge volume consist of approximately 2000 cubic meters made up of approximately 1400 cubic meters of sludge with a consistency similar to peanut butter and approximately 600 cubic meters of liquid supernate.”
