The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico won 72% of its subjective fee and 91% of its performance-based fee during fiscal 2021, according to an agency scorecard posted this week.
Altogether, Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B)-Los Alamos took home $8.37 million out of a potential $9.77 million, or roughly 86% of its total potential fee during the 12-month period ended Sept. 30, 2021.
The performance is not much different from the prior year’s scorecard, in which N3B had a subjective rating of 72% and earned 82% of the total potential fee.
In five subjective areas, the DOE found N3B “satisfactory” in cost control; “good” in the areas of management, schedule and quality assurance/safety. It was rated “excellent” in regulatory compliance.
Along with a safety culture, the DOE said better reporting would be among “opportunities for improvement” at Los Alamos. The contractor, headed by a Huntington Ingalls Industries subsidiary should provide “greater transparency in quarterly, monthly, and weekly reports that reveal the full impact of challenges and sub-par areas of performance,” the agency said in the scorecard.
Strengths include off-site shipments of waste thanks to collaboration between N3B and the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s prime contractor, Triad National Security. N3B won the maximum $683,000 for shipping defense-related transuranic waste from Los Alamos to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., according to the scorecard.There were a couple of safety-related work stoppages at waste handling areas of Los Alamos during the review period.
Likewise, N3B completed all agreed-upon proposed fiscal 2021 milestones under a 2016 consent order “on time and with good quality,” according to DOE.
Meanwhile, the New Mexico Environment Department has sued DOE in effort to terminate a 2016 consent order governing legacy waste remediation around Los Alamos. The parties are in settlement talks now and report regularly to a federal district judge. The case could go to trial next year if the negotiations are unsuccessful.
“I appreciate the dedication of the entire N3B team for their contributions to our positive scorecard, which is a reflection of our important contributions to DOE EM’s environmental cleanup mission,” said N3B President Kim Lebak in an emailed statement.
N3B is working on the five-year base period of a $1.4-billion contract that started in April 2018. The DOE Office of Environmental Management will decide by April 29, 2023, whether to pick up the first of two N3B option periods that together could stretch for another five years, or whether it wants to recompete the business.
