Consolidated Nuclear Security will officially remain the management and operations contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two main weapons production sites through September, the agency confirmed Friday.
As it attempts to address a controversy about a follow-on award to manage the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapon steward extended the Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) at least through the end of the 2022 fiscal year, a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) spokesperson at Washington headquarters wrote in an email.
“This extension will allow NNSA time to complete the voluntary corrective action it has undertaken to reassess the November 29, 2021, award of a contract to manage and operate these facilities,” an NNSA spokesperson said in an email on Friday. “NNSA is committed to an open and fair procurement process.”
The spokesperson declined to say whether the award this week included options beyond the six-month extension.
In February, sources familiar with the NNSA’s internal deliberations said the agency was contemplating options that could keep CNS on the site through March 2023, one year longer than the company’s management and operations contract was scheduled to expire.
CNS has managed the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, since 2014 under a joint site-management contract that NNSA elected in 2020 to end, citing management failures, worries about cyber security, nuclear criticality safety issues and timecard irregularities, among other things.
After a competition that lasted more than a year, NNSA awarded a potentially 10-year, $28-billion follow-on contract to manage the two sites to the Fluor-led Nuclear Production One, which also includes Amentum and several subcontractors.
One of the subs is information technology company Criterion, Bethesda, Md., employees of which were at the center of complaints from two losing bidders on the NNSA’s production sites management contract. The competing bidders claimed Criterion helped create an alleged conflict of interest that could have put bidders other than the Fluor-led team at a disadvantage with the agency.
