The Department of Energy said Thursday it plans in 15 to 45 days to release a draft request for proposals for the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state.
A presolicitation conference, site tour, and one-on-one sessions are tentatively scheduled for late May or June, DOE said as it released a short synopsis of the procurement. No further detail about the procurement schedule was immediately available.
The scope of the work in the new contract will be similar to the current Plateau Remediation Contract that expires on Sept. 30, 2018. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., owned by Jacobs Engineering Group, now holds the 10-year contract. The deal was valued at $4.5 billion when it was awarded, and $1.3 billion in economic stimulus work was added during the Obama administration. The contractor employs about 1,700 people.
The new contract will have one additional all-new scope of work, the synopsis indicated: closure of underground tanks that hold the site’s radioactive waste.
In fall 2017, the last of the 16 waste storage tanks in Hanford’s C Tank Farm were emptied to regulatory standards. It is the first Hanford tank farm to be empties of waste. The next step will involve closing the tanks, either by removing them from the ground or, as DOE has discussed, filling them with grout and leaving them buried.
Other work listed in the synopsis includes facility D4 (deactivation, decommissioning, decontamination, and demolition) and waste site remediation. The contractor will manage site operations for DOE Richland Operations Office cleanup facilities, presumably including those now managed by CH2M. The current contractor operates six pump-and-treat facilities to clean contaminated groundwater and the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility for low-level and mixed-low-level radioactive waste. The new contract also covers transuranic waste management, preparing documents needed to support legally required remediation milestones, and core business functions.
The Energy Department previously has said the new contract is expected to have a five-year base period, plus two options to bring the maximum length to 10 years.
The agency is also taking steps to replace additional expiring contracts with four other new contracts: the Hanford Mission Essential Services Contract, the Tank Waste Cleanup Contract, the Hanford Occupational Medical Services Contract, and the 222-S Laboratory Contract.
