There were no protests filed over the Department of Energy’s December award of a stand-alone contract for a Battelle-led team to manage the Savannah River National Laboratory, an agency official said this week.
“We are working on getting ready to do the contract transition,” said Michael Budney, the top DOE Office of Environmental Management official at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Budney addressed an online meeting Monday of the site’s Citizens Advisory Board.
The potential 10-year, $3.8 billion Savannah River National Laboratory contract was awarded Dec. 22 by DOE to Battelle Savannah River Alliance. Battelle Memorial Institute, which owns the Alliance, runs several national laboratories across the DOE complex, Budney said. “It’s going to be a great partnership,” he added.
Budney did not say when the transition would start. As of deadline Friday, a DOE Savannah River spokesperson said no date has been set yet for the notice to proceed. The eventual transition will last 120 days.
Battelle’s teaming subcontractors are Clemson University, Georgia Tech Research Corp., South Carolina State University, the University of Georgia Research Foundation, and the University of South Carolina as well as Longenecker & Associates, Inc. and TechSource.
Battelle Memorial Institute and various partners run the Idaho National Laboratory, the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The institute is also one of the partners of Triad National Security, which since November 2018 has run the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico for DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
Savannah River National Laboratory operations are currently part of the $14.9-billion Savannah River management and operations contract held by the Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. That deal is currently set to expire by Sept. 30, although a clause in the contract will allow Battelle to take over before then, DOE said recently.
In addition to the laboratory news, Budney told the advisory board that construction of Saltstone Disposal Unit No. 7 (SDU 7) should be completed this summer. Construction of the 32-million-gallon facility began in the summer of 2018. The DOE has said it should actually enter operation by the spring of 2022.
SDU-7, along with other massive concrete disposal units being built by DOE at Savannah River, will hold decontaminated salt solution generated at the Salt Waste Processing Facility, which started its regular radioactive operations on Jan. 18, Budney said.
One topic that did not emerge during the meeting was a new paramilitary security contract for the Savannah River Site. In a prior meeting of the citizens board, Budney said the award of the Security Services for Safeguard of Special Nuclear Material Contract at the site could come soon. Centerra Group is the current provider under a contract, now valued at more than $1 billion, which the company has held since October 2009. The company continues to provide security under a series of short-term extensions, the latest of which is scheduled to expire in February. No new contract award has been made yet, DOE officials at Savannah River confirmed via email Thursday.
