The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday denied a protest of the Energy Department’s award of a multibillion-dollar contract for remediation of the Central Plateau at the Hanford Site in Washington state to a group led by Amentum.
The Project W Restoration partnership, comprised of Bechtel National, Tetra Tech, and EnergySolutions, filed a protest Jan. 21 over the potential 10-year, $10 billion contract issued the month before to Central Plateau Cleanup Co., a team made up of Amentum, Fluor, and Atkins.
A notice simply saying the bid protest is denied was posted on the GAO website. Unlike most court documents, the filings that accompany protests of federal contracts are not public documents and Project W has declined to discuss the basis of its challenge.
The Government Accountability Office does typically post its written decision, with any potential sensitive business data withheld, within two weeks of the decision. Project W filed three supplement protests after the Jan. 21 challenge, and they were rejected as well.
A Bechtel spokesperson declined comment Friday.
Maryland-based Amentum, formerly the AECOM Management Services Group, said it is happy to have the Central Plateau Cleanup contract award upheld. “We have assembled a tremendous team anxious to begin working with the talented Hanford workforce, and we look forward to sharing our transition plans to continue work on this important DOE cleanup mission,” spokesman Keith Wood said in an emailed statement.
The Amentum-Fluor-Atkins team beat two other major bidders: the Bechtel team and another headed by incumbent Jacobs.
Jacobs subsidiary CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. has been on the job since October 2008 under a $6.4 billion contract extended in October of this year through September 2020 – although the new contract holder could take over before then. The new deal calls for a transition period of only 60 days.
The contract includes decommissioning and demolition of structures, remediation of certain waste sites, and prevention of radioactive or chemical waste from reaching the Columbia River.
The Central Plateau contract is the second major Hanford procurement upheld by the GAO in less than two weeks. On April 22, the congressional auditor upheld the potential 10-year, $4 billion site services contract awarded in December to Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, comprised of Leidos, Centerra, and Parsons. The unsuccessful protest was brought by a Huntington Ingalls Industries-led team.
