The final request for proposals for a contract to haul radio-contaminated material and equipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., will be released this month, no sooner than Sunday, the Energy Department said.
The new WIPP Transportation Services contract will be a five-year, fixed-price, indefinite-quantity, indefinite-delivery deal. The pact will replace a pair of five-year WIPP transport contracts that expire in 2017 and are worth a combined $240 million or so, split evenly between the two incumbents.
The contract will cover transport of contact-handled and remote-handled transuranic wastes and mixed hazardous constituents, including polychlorinated biphenyls and asbestos, between various DOE sites and WIPP.
The department announced the solicitation would hit the street this month in an online post to a procurement website dated June 29. The offer deadline is expected to be 30 calendar days following release of the RFP.
In early June, the agency briefed representatives of nine motor carriers about the contract, signaling shipments would ramp up slowly once WIPP reopens.
“It is estimated that once shipping resumes, a shipping rate of up to 5 shipments per week will be required through Calendar Year (CY) 2017, then possibly increase up to as many as 10 shipments per week through CY 2020/2021 as the WIPP waste emplacement efficiency is improved,” the Energy Department said in its written answer to questions from carriers at a June 1 site tour and pre-solicitation briefing.
WIPP has been closed since 2014, following an accidental underground radiation release and unrelated underground fire. The underground salt mine is slated to reopen on Dec. 12; the first deliveries of new waste from across the DOE complex are expected to begin in early 2017, DOE has said.
