Starting Oct. 5, a new Amentum-led team will begin a 60-day transition to take over as prime contractor for the mostly solid-waste cleanup of the Hanford Site’s central plateau, the Department of Energy said Tuesday.
Central Plateau Cleanup Co., comprised of Amentum, Fluor, and Atkins, won the potentially 10-year, $10 billion contract in December. A competing bidder, the Bechtel-led Project W Restoration, quickly filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), but that was dismissed in late April.
Typically, the 60-day transition would have started a couple of weeks after GAO dismissed the protest. But with Hanford, like other DOE nuclear cleanup sites, having temporarily reduced on-site staffing and implemented practices such as physical distancing and mask-wearing to slow the spread of COVID-19, the agency needed more time.
Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, a Leidos-led joint venture that won its contract to provide site-support services in December and also prevailed in a bid protest, started its transition Aug. 17.
Central Plateau Cleanup is taking over from Jacobs subsidiary CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., which has been on the job since October 2008 under a $6.4 billion contract.
By Oct. 8, Central Plateau Cleanup will launch a company website that includes a list of key personnel, organizational structure and other key information, according to DOE’s press release.
The new contractor will demolish old buildings, manage waste removal, comply with federal environmental laws and ensure radioactive contamination does not reach the Columbia River.
“We are excited to support the Department of Energy on the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract,” Mark Whitney, executive vice president and general Manager of Amentum’ s Nuclear and Environment strategic business unit, said in a Wednesday press release.
“Our goal is to be the safest, best-performing, most-respected cleanup contractor in the Department of Energy complex,” said Central Plateau Cleanup Co. President and Project Manager Scott Sax in the release.
