Brian Bradley
WC Monitor
10/16/2015
The Government Accountability Office on Oct. 8 denied Aerostar Perma-Fix TRU Services LLC’s (APT Services) protest of the Energy Department’s June 18 award of a three- to five-year, $123.9 million support services contract for operation of the Oak Ridge Transuranic Waste Processing Center to North Wind Solutions, LLC, according to an Oct. 9 press release by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. APT Services filed its protest on July 6, one day before Omega TRU Solutions, LLC, filed its protest, and seven days before ARS EnergX, LLC, filed a third protest. Omega and ARS EnergX later withdrew their protests, the EM release says. DOE is now prepared to start transitioning to the mostly firm-fixed-price contract, which includes a three-year base period with one two-year option.
GAO is holding the protest decision under protective order until “all parties agree to any necessary redactions,” according to EM spokeswoman Lynette Chafin, so the document has not been released. APT Services did not respond to requests for comment on the basis of its protest, and Omega had no contact information listed online. North Wind also did not respond to requests for comment on the matter. It is not known when GAO will release its record of decision, but the process could take days to several weeks, the latter of which is a more likely time frame, Chafin said.
EnergX President and Chief Executive Officer Anthony Buhl declined to comment in detail on the reasoning behind the company’s protest and subsequent withdrawal, but said it happened after new, previously unconsidered evidence surfaced about North Wind’s bid. “There are a number of things that we protested,” Buhl said during an interview Tuesday. “I think what happened after our attorneys examined … the redacted copy … we decided that North Wind actually had not violated some of the issues that we thought they had, and therefore we withdrew. It’s that simple.”
North Wind’s contract includes firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-award fee, and indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract line items.
“The primarily FFP nature of the contract will allow DOE to shift cost risk from the Government to the Contractor during execution of the contract requirements,” the EM release states. The contract’s scope entails management and operation of TWPC, which will include surveillance and maintenance activities, providing support to the Central Characterization Project for final certification and disposition of TRU soil and debris waste, processing other remote-handled or contact-handled TRU waste originating from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and processing of “Nuclear Fuel Services soils.”
TWPC is located within a DOE-owned 26-acre plot of land in support of Oak Ridge’s EM Office.
