The U.S. Energy Department debriefings on two major contract awards announced this month at the Hanford Site in Washington state will wait until January, two sources said this week.
On Dec. 12, Central Plateau Cleanup Co., comprised of AECOM, Fluor, and Atkins affiliates, won the potential 10-year, $10 billion contract for ongoing remediation of Hanford’s Central Plateau. One week prior, the Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS) partnership of Leidos, Centerra Group, and Parsons captured the 10-year, $4 billion contract for site-wide support services at the former plutonium production complex.
With the holidays looming, DOE elected to wait until the second week of January for the Hanford mission support debriefing, with the Central Plateau award debriefing the following week, one industry source said by telephone Tuesday.
Evidently, agency officials decided not to have everyone “work frantically over the holidays,” a second industry source said Wednesday.
The debrief sessions usually happen a week or two after the contract award. The Energy Department generally uses them to explain the rationale behind the contract awards to the bidders. The sessions are individual meetings with each bidding team.
The session also typically starts a 10-day clock ticking for the other companies to file formal bid protests with the Government Accountability Office. Procedures listed on the GAO website say bidders must file protests within 10 days after learning the selection process was allegedly flawed.
Industry chatter suggests the Leidos-led team beat other two other bidder groups for the services contract at Hanford, one headed by Huntington Ingalls Industries and another led by PAE. Likewise, the AECOM-led group apparently was chosen over two rival teams for the Central Plateau business – one led by Jacobs (its CH2M subsidiary is the incumbent), and one led by Bechtel.
Losing parties usually wait until the debrief before deciding if they will go ahead with a protest, sources said Thursday.
“Jacobs was disappointed in the announcement but looks forward to learning more in the debrief,” company spokeswoman Katie Warner said in an email.
