The incumbent management and operations contractor and the vendor in charge of liquid waste at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina both received at least 90 percent of their potential fee in new performance evaluations.
Fluor-led site prime Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) and AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation both received “excellent” overall marks in scorecards released by DOE last week. A score of 91 percent or higher is considered excellent.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions took home more than $22.5 million, or 92 percent of an available $24.4 million for the period from Oct. 1 2017, through July 31, 2018. One year earlier, SRNS earned almost $40 million, or 90 percent of a potential $44 million for its work during fiscal 2017.
Comprised of Fluor, Stoller Newport News Nuclear, and Honeywell International, SRNS received a one-year extension last summer as its original $9.5 billion contract was running out. The extension keeps SNRS on the job through July 2019 while DOE seeks a successor. The agency’s latest procurement schedule, issued in November, does not cite a target date for issuing a request for proposals for the SRS operations contract.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions does work at the site for both the DOE Office of Environmental Management and the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The contractor runs the NNSA nonproliferation missions, and processes tritium at SRS. The contractor also manages the Savannah River National Laboratory and oversees all SRS operations not involving security or liquid waste.
The latest scorecard shows SRNS earned 80 percent, or just under $5 million, of a potential $6.2 million in subjective fee. It garnered almost $14.5 million of a potential $15 million in objective fee drawn from performance-based incentives. The contractor also earned 99 percent of its potential $3 million for management of the Savannah River National Laboratory.
The Energy Department scorecard noted SRNS began processing three uranium streams in the H-Canyon for the first time — spent nuclear fuel from both the material test reactor and the high flux isotope reactor, as well as target residue material solutions. The contractor turned around a negative fiscal 2017 trend on environmental notices of violations. It used a variety of steps, including risk-based self-assessments, corporate compliance reviews, and reorganization to reverse the trend.
At the same time, the Energy Department said SRNS needs to be more critical on its self-assessment and adjust its grading system.
Savannah River Remediation (SRR) took home more than $12.5 million, or 95 percent of about $13.2 million in potential fee for the period between Jan. 1 2018, and May 31, 2018, for storage, treatment, and disposal of about 35 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste at SRS.
The SRR team, comprised of AECOM, Bechtel, Jacobs subsidiary CH2M, and BWX Technologies, saw its original 10-year, $5 billion contract expire at the end of 2017. The vendor team has received two extensions, with the latest scheduled to run through March of this year.
During its previous review period, SRR won $12 million, or 96 percent of its potential fee of $12.4 million for work done between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2017.
The Energy Department praised SRR for designing and building three saltstone disposal units while also making progress on installing equipment for the program of tank closure cesium removal from the waste. Worker safety, however, was listed as an area needing improvement because of some “near misses” in the Defense Waste Processing Facility and tank farms.
The Energy Department in October 2017 awarded Savannah River EcoManagement, comprised of BWXT, Bechtel, and Honeywell, a new 10-year, $4.7 billion liquid waste contract. But an AECOM-CH2M team won a bid protest before the Government Accountability Office in February of last year. The Energy Department had those two teams, and a Fluor-Westinghouse bidder, submit updated proposals in the spring. It has not yet re-awarded the contract.
