The Energy Department declined several requests from prospective vendors to extend the Feb. 3 deadline for bidding on a potential 10-year, $3 billion Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning, and Removal Contract for excess facilities.
The Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center last month published 152 questions and answers from potential bidders on the final request for proposals (RFP) posted Dec. 17. Many, citing the winter holidays, requested the submission deadline be delayed to late February or early March.
The federal agency did not offer a rationale. “At this time, we do not anticipate extending the proposal due date” beyond Feb. 3, DOE said.
The first contaminated facility to be torn down under the procurement will be Building 251 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The structure was used from the 1950s until 1981 to produce heavy-element nuclear tracers for underground testing of nuclear devices.
The 31,000-square-foot Building 251 is overseen by the Lawrence Livermore National Security team that is comprised of Bechtel, the University of California, BWXT, and the former AECOM Management Services, now Amentum, as well as Battelle, and Texas A&M University.
Removal of Building 251 will be Task Order 1 under the procurement; the Energy Department expects the job to be completed within two years of signing a contract.
The procurement could lead to issuance of an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract to multiple vendors, which would then be eligible to compete for future deactivation and removal projects at other federal nuclear sites. The Building 251 work would serve as a sample task order for evaluation of the master IDIQ contract, according to the DOE questions and answers.
The Energy Department has indicated it could issue the DD&R contract for Building 251 about nine months after proposals are submitted, which would be November. The fee for the work could range from zero to 15% of the cost of the project. Debris from demolition is expected to be disposed of at the Nevada National Security Site at a rate of $30.22 per cubic foot, according to agency answers to submitted questions.
International firms must submit a foreign ownership, control, or influenced (FOCI) company mitigation strategy in order to compete for the work DOE told vendors. Such safeguards are required by the federal government because of the site’s national security role.
The agency declined to say in the published Q&A how many awards might be issued from the RFP. However, it noted in its official reply that plenty of contaminated, no-longer-needed facilities remain be demolished throughout the nuclear complex. The agency pointed to an October 2018 report to Congress in which then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry said there are roughly 1,600 such facilities controlled by DOE’s Offices of Environmental Management, Nuclear Energy, and Science, along with its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
Addressing all the facilities is likely to cost more than $12 billion, according to that report.
