The Department of Energy on Feb. 14 issued a potential contract extension of up to two years, through July 2022, to the incumbent vendor for cleanup of the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
The Energy Department posted a notice of intent to award a sole-source deal to URS/CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) in the form of a one-year extension, plus two additional six-month option periods.
The incumbent contractor’s $3.2 billion decontamination and decommissioning agreement, which started in August 2011, would otherwise expire on July 31.
The parties have not started negotiations to determine the value of the one-year extension, “but that figure is being finalized this summer,” a DOE spokesperson said by email Wednesday.
The base period of performance will be Aug. 1, 2020, through July 31, 2021, according to the notice. Based upon contractor performance and its ability to meet specific milestones, DOE will decide whether to exercise the two six-month options. The notice did not say what milestones will be evaluated.
The agency might not need to tap all options. But the move, announced on a federal procurement website, provides wiggle room while procurement for a new contract goes forward.
In July 2019, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said it expected to issue a new request for proposals (RFP) for Oak Ridge decontamination and decommissioning within 60 days. No RFP has been forthcoming; given the UCOR extension, it would seem a new 10-year contract has been put on the backburner.
An industry source said this week that as the Energy Department wrestles with vendor protests against two new multibillion-dollar contract awards for the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Oak Ridge contract for building demolition and other environmental activities could fall “to the bottom of the pile.” Many sources said in recent weeks they expect the bid protests will slow the procurement pipeline for DOE nuclear cleanup.
“This sole source modification will provide the continuity of services without interruption” for “high priority” environmental work at the Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), along with the continuation of East Tennessee Technology Park remediation, the procurement notice says.
UCOR is now winding down its demolition of structures and most major remediation at the East Tennessee Technology Park, the former uranium enrichment complex at Oak Ridge. The next contract is expected to focus more on work at Y-12 and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
URS was bought by AECOM in 2014. AECOM’s federal government branch was recently sold to a pair of New York investment firms and became the stand-alone company Amentum. In August 2017, Jacobs acquired CH2M.
