The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is doing early planning for a new technical assistance contract for the office in southeastern New Mexico that oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
On Monday, the federal agency issued a request for information (RFI)/sources sought notice for interested businesses with the necessary expertise to serve the Carlsbad Field Office.
While the RFI is not a request for proposals, the Carlsbad office is looking for a vendor to provide technical advice and assistance in areas including WIPP waste acceptance criteria, audits and assessments, security, compliance with environmental and other regulations, packaging and transport of transuranic radioactive waste, and general business operations.
The current $43.6 million contract, held by Idaho-based North Wind Portage, started Nov. 12, 2015, and runs through Dec. 3, 2020.
The Energy Department is trying to decide if all or part of any new technical assistance contract should be set aside for small business. Prospective vendors should be aware of the “highly competitive labor and housing markets” around Carlsbad, due to an ongoing oil and gas boom in the area, according to the RFI.
Capability statements should be a maximum of 15 pages and provide an overview of a firm’s prior experience doing similar work over the past five years, as well as feedback on DOE’s proposed scope of work. The documents must be submitted no later than 7:30 a.m. ET on Sept. 16 to Contracting Officer Ian Rexroad, at [email protected]. Any questions about the RFI announcement should also be emailed to Rexroad.
The disposal site for defense-related TRU waste sustained an underground radiation leak in February 2014. It subsequently stayed offline for about three years before reopening “in a limited capacity” in 2017 due to low air flows and other factors. Pre-accident operational levels of salt mining and waste emplacement should be restored by fiscal 2025, following completion of a new filter building for underground ventilation and a new utility shaft for future underground disposal areas, according to the RFI.
