Less than a month after officially calling off a $13-billion liquid-waste cleanup award at the Hanford Site, the Department of Energy has started procurement of a replacement pact called the Hanford Integrated Tank Disposition Contract, with a draft solicitation expected by March.
The draft request for proposals (RFP) will, unlike the now-revoked tank-waste contract awarded to a BWX Technologies-led team last year, include the direct-feed low-activity waste work planned at Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant, which Bechtel National is building.
That’s according to the Tuesday notice DOE’s Office of Environmental Management posted on a federal procurement website. The new integrated tank disposition contract will replace the Tank Operations Contract held by Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions. The incumbent is on the job at least through September.
Just before Christmas, DOE cancelled its May award of the multibillion-dollar tank closure contract to Hanford Works Restoration, a group led by Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies. Other members of that group were Fluor, Intera and Richland, Wash.-based DBD.
The DOE said then that it wanted to combine the planned closure of Hanford’s 177 underground tanks of liquid radioactive waste with the direct-feed, low-activity waste campaign to turn waste into glass form by 2023.
The Christmas-time cancellation followed a protest earlier in 2020 by losing bidders. After the protest, DOE revealed that it would consider whether the BWX Technologies team’s employment of a retired DOE Hanford manager “gave the awardee an unfair competitive advantage or created an appearance of impropriety.”
The DOE has created a new website for the planned procurement. The DOE contracting officer is Clare Rexroad, [email protected].
An industry source reached Thursday said he expects Amentum and Jacobs to be among bidders vying for the new deal.
Twice during the just-concluded Donald Trump administration, BWXT was initially awarded a multibillion-dollar liquid waste contract only to eventually have it cancelled. The first involved the first involved the long-term waste business at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Several EM Awards Pending This Year
Aside from the tanks business, DOE solicited bids for several contracts in 2020 that it could award in the next 12 months.
The final RFP for the Idaho Cleanup Project hit the streets in May 2020 and bids were due in July. The contract for work at Idaho National Laboratory combines the main cleanup agreement that Fluor now holds with a smaller spent fuel management contract held by Spectra Tech. The new combined contract could be worth up to $6.4 billion over 15 years.
The final RFP for a five-year, $100-million technical assistance contract at the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico was rolled out in October. Bids were due last month. North Wind Portage is the incumbent.
Likewise the Portsmouth Infrastructure Support Services RFP in Ohio was released in October and bids were due in December. The incumbent is Portsmouth Mission Alliance, a team made up of Idaho-based North Wind Group and Swift & Staley, under a $117-million deal that began in March 2016 and is set to run through Feb. 24.
The RFP for the potential 15-year, $21-billion Savannah River Site Integrated Mission Completion Contract came out in October. It will replace the current liquid waste agreement held by Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation. Bids were due in December.
Speaking of Savannah River, industry is still awaiting award of the Savannah River Site Paramilitary Security Contract. An RFP was issued back in April 2019. Centerra continues to provide protection under a series of short-term extensions to its roughly $1 billion contract.
