Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos said Wednesday it has received notice from the Department of Energy to start the transition into its $1.39 billion contract for cleanup services at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The Stoller Newport News Nuclear-BWX Technologies team, which was named as the contract winner in December over two other bidding teams, started its 90-day transition period Wednesday. The three-month changeover will lead into a base contract period of five years and subsequent options of three years and two years, according to a press release from Stoller parent Huntington Ingalls.
The SN3-BWXT team also announced Tech2 Solutions and Longenecker & Associates would be key subcontractors on the project. Tech2 Solutions, a joint venture between Tetra Tech and Sealaska Technical Services, will handle water program management. Longenecker will support quality assurance and contractor assurance.
“The cleanup mission at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a high priority for the nation and we are pleased to be a part of the team that will perform this vital work,” Longenecker CEO Bonnie Longenecker said in a press release.
Other details were still sparse this week regarding management of the new contractor, and the number of employees who would be working on the LANL legacy project. The current contractor reportedly has roughly 400 people working on the legacy project.
“We are excited to begin working with the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office,” Stoller Newport News Nuclear President Nick Lombardo said in the company’s release. “This is important work, and we are bringing an experienced and motivated team to deliver the performance that our DOE client expects.”
The contract includes protecting a key regional aquifer and remediation of contaminated legacy waste sites in and around LANL, as well as decontamination, decommissioning, and demolition of structures.
The Energy Department requested just shy of $192 million for defense environmental cleanup at Los Alamos for fiscal 2018, which began Oct. 1 of last year. Congress has yet to approve a full-year budget, leaving DOE and other federal agencies largely frozen at fiscal 2017 budget levels.
BWXT is a partner in exiting LANL environmental remediation contractor Los Alamos National Security (LANS), which is also the management and operations prime at the nuclear weapons lab. The other LANS members are Bechtel National, AECOM, and the University of California.
LANS’ bridge cleanup contract was originally set to expire on Sept. 30. The team, however, received a six-month, $65 million extension to finish up treatment of nitrate salt drums. The drums held a radioactive mix of nitrate salts and organic kitty litter similar to the drum that blew open at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico in February 2014.
The award to the Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos was only announced a few days before the Christmas holiday, which delayed the usual debriefing process. No bid protests of the award were publicly posted on the Government Accountability Office website. One of the losing teams was believed to be a CH2M-Fluor partnership.
Los Alamos National Security’s management contract runs out Sept. 30. Sources have indicated that the incumbent team is dissolving. The University of California has acknowledged it is pursuing the next contract, though it has not identified its teammates. AECOM is believed to be sitting out on this bidding process. Proposals were due in December, and DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration is expected to award the new M&O contract in April or May.
