Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
7/25/2014
A team led by Fluor won the Department of Energy’s new task order to provide deactivation services at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant this week. The Fluor team, which also includes CB&I and LATA, beat out a team of led by AECOM for the new contract, estimated to be worth $420 million over the next three years. “We are very pleased to be the preferred bidder on this project,” Fluor Government Group President Bruce Stanski said in a release. "By leveraging the gaseous diffusion plant experience we’ve gained at Portsmouth and Fluor’s decades of experience managing and operating nuclear decommissioning sites, we look forward to working with the Department of Energy to deliver the site’s program safely and cost effectively."
The new Paducah task order has been the only one competed to date under DOE’s current set of unrestricted national indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity cleanup contracts. While there had initially been heavy interest in the Paducah task order, industry concerns over a number of provisions ultimately led to reportedly just two of the 11 eligible ID/IQ contractors bidding on the work. It remains to be seen if AECOM will look to file a protest over its loss with the Government Accountability Office; the company is currently in the midst of acquiring URS, which has a significant presence in the DOE cleanup program. AECOM declined to comment on its loss this week.
USEC, the Paducah plant’s current leaseholder, decided last year to cease enrichment activities at the plant. DOE and USEC have reached an agreement for the plant to be returned to the Department by Oct. 1. The new contract awarded this week is intended to aid DOE in the transition and to help prepare the plant for eventual decommissioning; the Department is currently planning a lengthy surveillance-and-maintenance period for the plant. Services to be provided under the deactivation contract, according to DOE, include Project Management (including Paducah GDP Delease Planning and Facility Transfer); Facility Modification and Infrastructure Optimization (including Stabilization and Deactivation of GDP Facilities); Decontamination and Demolition, and Environmental Services.
Kentucky Congressional Delegation Urge Quick Move to Active D&D
In the wake of DOE’s award, though, members of Kentucky’s Congressional delegation are urging the Department to move forward with full D&D of the Paducah plant. “Following the award of the IDIQ contract, we now ask that you support commencing full scale D&D of the gaseous diffusion plant, while also ensuring that ongoing environmental remediation continues at an aggressive pace. We expect the department to move quickly in executing vital cleanup work, including that which is associated with the IDIQ contract, in order to encourage the hiring of laid-off workers in community,” Sens. Mitch McConnell (R) and Rand Paul (R), along with Rep. Ed Whitfield (R), wrote in a July 22 letter to Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. They added, “Congress has appropriated funds expressly for cleanup activities and both the House and Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittees have made clear that Congress expects the department to begin full D&D work at the site in a timely fashion.”
The three lawmakers also called on DOE to improve communications with the local community near the Paducah site. “We believe the community has been patient with the department during this difficult transition progress and that the cleanup work—which the community, the delegation and the department all agree is vital—represents an opportunity to employ workers in the community, many of whom have unique skills applicable to performing these tasks,” the letter to Moniz says.
Pro2Serve Gets More Work to Aid in Paducah Transition
To aid in the transition of the Paducah plant back to DOE until the new deactivation services contractor is fully in place, the Department is giving Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve) a boost in work. DOE has added approximately $12.5 million worth of work to Pro2Serve’s existing environmental technical services contract, according to a notice issued late last week. “Pro2Serve’s task order includes a minimum of PGDP Transition Support services and Facility De-lease Support activities. The modification to the Pro2Serve task order will significantly increase the Transition Support services and De-leasing activities,” the notice says.
Pro2Serve has been given the additional work because of DOE’s delays in awarding the new Paducah deactivation contract, according to the notice. “The Paducah deactivation contract was supposed to include support for these transition and de-leasing activities. However, since the Paducah Deactivation contract was not awarded as anticipated in January 2014, and it has still not been awarded as of June 2014, the ability of both parties to fulfill the terms of the framework agreement will be seriously impacted without the issuance of a modification” to Pro2Serve’s contract, the notice says. The notice goes on to state, “Without the increased work from Pro2Serve, potentially unrecognized environmental/safety non-compliance issues associated with the facilities will go unnoticed, and there would be insufficient programmatic controls in place to ensure these issues are discovered and addressed prior to return.”
GE-Hitachi to Halt Most Work on Laser Enrichment Technology
Meanwhile, in a move that could also have impacts at the Paducah site, GE-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment LLC (GLE) announced late this week plans to suspend most work on its Silex-based laser enrichment technology as a result of adverse market conditions. Late last year, DOE announced it would enter into negotiations with GLE for a portion of the Department’s stockpile of depleted uranium tails, with GLE having planned to build a new facility at the Paducah site to re-enrich them.
In this week’s release, though, Silex said that GLE now plans to consolidate efforts on the technology development activities to its Wilmington facility in North Carolina and most contractor-based work on the project will be suspended, with the project facility near Oak Ridge, Tennessee to be placed in a safe storage mode, and GLE-funded activities at the laser development facility in Australia to cease. “Although Silex monitors the broader uranium market conditions, GLE’s announcement was unexpected. GLE has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to date, and subject to satisfactory economics, market conditions and regulatory requirements, continues to fund the program towards potential commercialization,” Silex said in the release.
The release goes on to say, “Silex remains optimistic about the medium term prospects for the technology and has been advised that GLE continues to negotiate with the U.S. Department of Energy on the opportunity for enrichment of depleted tails inventories in Paducah, Kentucky.” Officials at the DOE Office of Environmental Management were unavailable for comment late this week.
