Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
2/21/2014
Members of Kentucky’s Congressional delegation are calling on the Department of Energy to move “as quickly as possible” to award the new deactivation contract for the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. DOE’s acquisition forecast currently projects making an award no later than the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2015, a schedule that has prompted concern from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), Sen. Rand Paul (R) and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R). Calling on the Department to make full D&D of the plant “a priority” in the upcoming Fiscal Year, the three wrote to Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz earlier this week, “We hope it’s not DOE’s intention to delay the execution of the … contract to fiscal year 2015 in an attempt to minimize and reduce cleanup activities in subsequent years. We will not stand idly by should the Department decide to place the gaseous diffusion plant in a ‘surveillance and maintenance’ state. Not only would this result in lost jobs and increase the cost for long-term D&D, but it could also threaten the safety and well being of the community.”
DOE is currently evaluating two bids—one from a team led by Fluor and one from a team led by AECOM—for the new Paducah deactivation contract. The new contract, which is being competed under the Department’s set of national indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity cleanup contracts, is set to run for three years and be worth several hundred million dollars. DOE is currently in talks with USEC, the leaseholder for the Paducah plant, on returning the facility back to the Department after USEC chose to shutdown enrichment operations there. The schedule for the return of the Paducah plant back to DOE, though, remains unclear. DOE has projected receiving the plant sometime this calendar year; but in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last fall, USEC said that while it will be ready to end its lease as early as July 2014, in talks with DOE they have not been able to come to an agreement to turn over the facility before August 2015. “To facilitate a smooth transition” of the Paducah plant, the lawmakers wrote, DOE should move quickly to hire a permanent Department manager for the site. “It is our understanding that this position has gone unfilled for some time,” they wrote.
Lawmakers Worried Skilled Workers May Leave
In their letter to Moniz this week, the lawmakers also urged DOE to “utilize all means available” to begin work at Paducah that can be performed prior to the award of the new deactivation contract. Some cleanup activities at the site are already being performed by LATA Environmental Services of Kentucky, and the lawmakers called on the Department to release FY14 appropriated funding so the contractor can rehire workers who were laid off at the end of last year. “It is vitally important to the Paducah community that DOE continue ongoing cleanup and begin new work in a timely manner to ensure that experienced, highly skilled workers do not leave the region,” they wrote, adding, “Should these workers leave the area, we feel the quality of the vital cleanup work at the site could suffer and potentially cost taxpayers more in the long-run.”
