Roughly 90 representatives from some of the Energy Department’s major contractors registered for an industry day last week on the potential 15-year, $6.4 billion cleanup contract for the Idaho National Laboratory.
The Energy Department issued the draft request for proposals for the award last month. It followed that up with a tour, informational program, and one-on-one meetings on Feb. 25. The agency also held a community meeting Feb. 28.
Among the registered participants: Amentum (formerly AECOM Management Services), Aptim, ARS Aleut Remediation, Atkins Nuclear, Bechtel National, BWX Technologies, EnergySolutions, Environ, Fluor, GEM Technologies, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Jacobs, NAC International, Navarro Research and Engineering, North Wind Group, Spectra Tech, and Veolia.
Incumbent Fluor Idaho’s contract is valued at nearly $2 billion, from June 2016 to May 2021. The new agreement will combine Fluor’s remediation operations with Spectra Tech’s roughly five-year, $45 million award for management of Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed spent fuel at INL and Fort St. Vrain in Colorado. The Spectra Tech agreement runs through March 2021, provided that DOE picks up its 12-month option later this month.
The procurement is based on DOE’s end-state contracting model, which uses a single award indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) agreement. The end state philosophy is meant to speed cleanup by providing contractors with potentially higher fees, while allowing the government more flexibility to amend a job’s scope of work.
The selection will be based on factors such as key managers with experience on other government contracts, past performance, and management approach – including small business participation, according to agency slides. If the program manager approved in the contract leaves for another job in less than three years, the vendor could lose $500,000 of its earned fee.
There are three major work areas under the contract – the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC), the Radioactive Waste Management Complex, and Fort St. Vrain.
The winning contractor will also be responsible for operation of the $1 billion Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU). The facility is expected to start treating 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing liquid radioactive waste by the end of 2020. The federal agency was supposed to start converting the liquid waste into a more-stable solid form by 2012. But the facility never works as expected. The agency and Fluor Idaho are encouraged by a series of encouraging tests over the past year.
Questions on the procurement are due today to [email protected].
Once the final RFP is released, potential bidders will have 30 days to submit a proposal to DOE.
