Savannah River Mission Completion, the BWX Technologies-led liquid waste contractor, received high marks for its opening months on the job at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Also this week, DOE issued fee scorecards for three other contractors at the federal complex adjacent to the Georgia state line.
The liquid-waste contractor earned about $27,000 out of a potential $28,000 for its work from June 27 through Sept. 30, which represents some of its early work after taking over from incumbent Savannah River Remediation, an Amentum-led venture, in late February.
The award, 96% of the total available, all comes from a subjective rating from the DOE Office of Environmental Management. “Objective Fee was not evaluated for this period,” according to the scorecard posted online Wednesday.
On the upside, the DOE said the new contractor made substantial progress on construction of Saltstone disposal units 8 and 9 and also safety and health protection for the workforce. One area for improvement, however, is safety oversight for subcontractors, DOE said.
The BWXT-led venture, with Amentum and Fluor as partners, beat out three other rivals in October 2021 for a potential 10-year, $21-billion contract.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the Fluor-led management contractor for the site since August 2008, won 87% of its subjective fee and almost $37 million of the total available fee of about $39 million, or nearly 95% for fiscal 2022, according to its scorecard.
That is roughly the same as the operations contractor’s performance review for fiscal 2021 when it won 91% of its subjective fee and 96% of its potential fee for the final 10 months of fiscal 2021.
The DOE said, however, it had concerns with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions performance when it came to overseeing subcontractors’ worker protection plans. But overall the prime contractor received an “excellent” ranking from the agency.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management cited the joint venture, which also has Newport News and Honeywell International as members, for cleaning up a 25-mile-long stream corridor, beating its 55% small business goal with 60% and finishing major infrastructure improvement projects.
This fall the DOE announced a potential five-year extension for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. The four-year extension with a one-year option period for DOE could keep the incumbent landlord on the job through September 2027.
That would be after the DOE Office of Environmental Management turns over the Savannah River Site keys to the National Nuclear Security Administration. The extension could be worth $12 billion over five years. From 2008 through 2027, the business is valued at more than $28 billion.
Battelle Savannah River Alliance finished its first full year of running the Savannah River National Laboratory on Sept. 30, after taking over lab management from Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. The Battelle venture earned about $6.2 million or 94% of about $6.6 in its total overall potential fee for the 12-month period. The lab manager was awarded a final letter grade of A-minus, or excellent, for its work from Oct. 1, 2021 through Sept. 30, 2022.
The latest fee scorecard finding is not far off from the 95% and excellent rating the Battelle-led contractor received in its three-month scorecard for fiscal 2021.
Under mission accomplishment, the Battelle venture was awarded grades of A-minus or A in areas including environmental management, global nuclear security, science, energy security and legacy management. It received a B-plus on its nuclear weapons mission.
The contractor’s management and operations of the Savannah River National Laboratory “demonstrated excellent performance by exceeding almost all the significant award fee goals and objectives and meeting overall cost, schedule, and technical performance requirements of the contract.”
Battelle Savannah River Alliance started a potential five-year, $3.8 billion contract, to run the laboratory in February 2021. The entity is a Battelle affiliate with a group of university subcontractors from South Carolina and Georgia as well as a small business, Longenecker & Associates.
Centerra-Savannah River Site was judged by DOE as an “excellent” provider of security at the 310-square-mile federal complex during a period that mostly coincided with the 2022 fiscal year.
The contractor took home $6.3 million out of a potential $6.7 million or 94% of potential fee for its security services between Oct. 7, 2021 and Oct. 7, 2022, according to the new scorecard. The performance is nearly identical in both dollar amount and percentage to the figures included in its last year-long review.
One area of concern by DOE “included single point failures” by protective forces personnel “not adhering to established procedures,” according to the scorecard. But Centerra self-reported the problems and corrected them, according to DOE.
The contract involves providing guns, gates and guards along with paramilitary and cyber security-type services at the Savannah River Site. Centerra has had the business since Oct. 8, 2009, and thanks to a recent DOE extension, will stay onsite at least until early October 2024. The contract is now valued at $1.6-billion.
During the past couple of years, Centerra has effectively protested and undone DOE attempts to award the Savannah River security business to another provider.
