The U.S. Department of Energy on Sept. 27 officially issued up to one-year contract extensions for waste tank and Central Plateau cleanup at the Hanford Site in Washington state, as federal procurement officials work on long-term awards for those and other major projects.
The previously announced extensions will be worth $665 million for AECOM-led Washington River Protection Solutions and $500 million to Jacobs subsidiary CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation, DOE said. The figures are based on the vendors working through Sept. 30, 2020, although the agency hopes to issue new 10-year contracts before that date.
The tank operations business has been worth nearly $7 billion since WRPS began work in October 2008. Central Plateau remediation is valued at almost $6 billion for CH2M over the same time period.
The Energy Department issued requests for proposals for new awards in February. Bids for both contracts came due in March. The new tank contract could be worth up to $15 billion over 10 years, while the new Central Plateau award could be worth up to $12 billion over a decade.
Without the extensions the current contracts would have ended Sept. 30, an Energy Department spokesman noted in an email.
Word of the extensions first circulated via an Energy Department email to Hanford employees in early August. The DOE Office of Environmental Management on Aug. 13 filed formal notices of intent to extend both contracts. Both contractors issued public statements in August cheering the news.
In both cases the incumbents are uniquely qualified to continue uninterrupted service on important environmental work, the Energy Department said.
Comprised of AECOM and Atkins, WPRS manages 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste in underground storage, which is left over from decades of plutonium production at Hanford.
The Central Plateau Remediation Contract requires CH2M to remove high-hazard wastes streams and clean up contaminated groundwater plumes before they reach the Columbia River. It also includes decommissioning and tearing down the Plutonium Finishing Plant.
Many Contracts Await Final Award
Two other DOE contracts at Hanford, along with several others across the weapons cleanup complex, are awaiting issuance of new 10-year awards.
An Energy Department chart on major contracts, freshly updated on Wednesday, shows about 10 contract extensions issued over the past couple years. Savannah River Remediation, the AECOM-led liquid waste manager at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, leads the way with four extensions of 10 months or less since June 2017. Extensions should keep it on the job through September 2020. The liquid waste business has been worth about $6 billion to SRR since July 2009.
The Energy Department canceled its procurement for a new long-term contract in March 2018 following a saga in which a $4.7 billion contract was initially awarded to a BWX Technologies-led team in October 2017, only to see the award undone by a bid protest in February 2018.
Likewise, the federal agency is keeping on Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions as SRS site manager through a series of options that could run through September 2022.
Three Western Democrats in the U.S. Senate noted in a Sept. 27 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry that his agency had alerted Congress days before that an award was imminent for the Hanford Mission Essential Services Contract. But the agency promptly withdrew the congressional notification, saying it was issued in error.
The deadline for bid proposals for the new contract, which could be worth up to $6 billion, was November 2018. The current $4.3 billion of business, which runs into late November, is held by Leidos-led Mission Support Alliance. The contract includes site-wide support operations such as road maintenance, fleet management, and emergency response.
Bids for the potential 10-year, $1 billion consolidated contract for operation of the Hanford 222-S Laboratory were submitted in April. The former Wastren Advantage, purchased by Veolia in January 2018, holds a $52 million contract for laboratory analysis that extends into September 2020. Tank contractor WRPS provides maintenance, support services, and other work for 222-S under its multibillion-dollar tank contract.
The Office of Environmental Management decided a couple years ago it wants to go from two prime contracts to one at the laboratory.
Bidding closed Sept. 20 on the he potential 10-year, $350 million remediation contract for Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). The current contract held by Navarro is good for roughly five years and is valued at $80 million. The existing agreement is set to expire in January 2020. The contract covers decontamination and decommissioning, soil remediation, and waste disposal.
Bid proposals were due in May on the nearly $1 billion paramilitary security contract for the Savannah River Site. The current vendor, Centerra-SRS, holds the $980 million business to protect people, facilities, and information at SRS. and is working under a series of four-month extensions. If all of those short-term extensions are exercised it would stay on the job into October 2020.
As of Thursday, the Office of Environmental Management has not met its Sept. 1 target, which was only announced in July, to issue a draft RFP for a new 10-year, $6 billion contract for remediation at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The current venture, UCOR, which includes AECOM and CH2M, is working under a $3.2 billion contract that runs through July 2020.
