Follow-up protest filed over Portsmouth/Paducah contract award

Mission Operations Alliance, a limited liability corporation, has filed a second bid protest with the Government Accountability Office over the Department of Energy’s $2.3-billion award to an Atkins-led group at former uranium enrichment sites in Ohio and Kentucky.

The latest bid protest by the Bechtel-led Mission Operations Alliance was filed Dec. 6 with the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Missions Operations Alliance filed its initial protest Nov. 19 over DOE’s award to Mission Conversion Services Alliance, which beat out a total of three other bidders.

Mission Operations Alliance is a partnership of Bechtel National and Amentum, sources said. The competition for the contract began before Amentum’s July consolidation with the government contracting wing of Dallas-based Jacobs Solutions. The Dec. 6 protest is a supplemental challenge based on documents Mission Operations Alliance gained access to following the initial November protest.

GAO has targeted Feb. 27 for ruling on the challenges by the Bechtel-led contractor.

Like an existing contract held by an Atkins-led team, the new Portsmouth Paducah Project Office Operations and Site Mission Support Services contract covers depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion at DOE’s shuttered gaseous diffusion plants. It also includes  key operations work such as site security, emergency management and fire safety jobs currently handled under two separate contracts.

The winner of the follow-on contract, Mission Conversion Services, is made up of Atkins Nuclear Secured, Westinghouse Government Services, and Jacobs Technology, now part of Amentum Holdings.

Atkins leads Mid-America Conversion Services, which currently runs the DUF6 conversion plants at Portsmouth and Paducah.