It could be days or possibly weeks before the Energy Department takes a second stab at issuing a decade-long liquid contract for management of liquid radioactive waste in storage at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
“It’s always soon,” a source in South Carolina quipped Wednesday to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
Energy Department officials have said in recent months they hope to re-award the contract by the end of September after an earlier contract was successfully protested. The Aiken Standard newspaper in South Carolina quoted SRS Associate Deputy Manager Thomas Johnson Jr. as saying Tuesday the award was close, but DOE wants to ensure the contract can withstand another potential protest.
But two other industry sources were skeptical about DOE avoiding another protest.
“Good luck with that,” an industry source said Tuesday when told of Johnson’s remarks. Another industry source on Wednesday agreed: “There is nothing they can do to keep it from being protested.”
BWX Technologies-led Savannah River EcoManagement won a 10-year, $4.7 billion contract last October. But the victory was short-lived for BWXT and its partners, Bechtel and Honeywell. In February, the Government Accountability Office upheld a bid protest brought by a team of AECOM and CH2M. The GAO found the Energy Department failed to properly vet the viability of the winning bidder’s technical approach to process the waste and convert it into more stable forms.
The Energy Department accepted revised bids from all three contractor teams, including a Fluor-Westinghouse partnership. The winning venture will manage storage, treatment, stabilization, and ultimate disposal of over 30 million gallons of liquid waste at Savannah River resulting from decades of nuclear weapons operations.
The current contractor, AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation, has received contract extensions through March 31, 2019.
