The U.S. Energy Department has now formally announced plans to keep the three current providers of technical support services for the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) on the job through June 2020.
The agency filed a notice Oct. 10 announcing plans to keep Albuquerque, N.M.-based Strategic Management Solutions Inc. (SMSI) on the job for up to six additional months as engineering and operations technical services provider for PPPO. That covers PPPO headquarters in Lexington, Ky., as well as depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion operations in Pike County, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management filed a similar notice of intent for a sole-source extension the same day for Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based RSI EnTech, which provides technical support for cleanup at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
Both contracts are currently scheduled to expire on Dec. 31. If they receive full six-month extensions, SMSI and RSI EnTech would both receive $5 million to $7 million, according to the DOE notices.
The Energy Department last week announced a six-month contract extension for similar work provided by Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Pro2Serve at the Paducah Site. Its six-month extension could be worth up to $3.5 million.
The Energy Department wants to eventually replace the three piecemeal contracts with a single award covering technical services across the PPPO complex. The vendor will provide technical and administrative support to assist DOE with the management of the former gaseous diffusion plants in Portsmouth and Paducah and DUF6 operations at both locations, along with assorted engineering and information technology chores across the PPPO complex.
However, Strategic Management Solutions has twice protested a five-year, $137 million contract awarded to a Pro2Serve unit, Enterprise Technical Assistance Services, Inc. (E-TAS). The Energy Department pulled the first June 2018 award in August 2018 after the initial protest, then issued the contract again in August, only to have SMSI file another bid protest the following month.
Strategic Management Solutions on Oct. 7 filed a supplemental bid protest with the Government Accountability Office, evidently based on information it learned since filing the September protest. A GAO ruling is expected by Jan. 15.
Anyone objecting to DOE issuing a six-month extension to RSI EnTech without open bidding should file comments by 4:30 p.m. ET, on Oct. 23. The comments should be sent to Contracting Officer Tyler Hicks, at [email protected].
The deadline for comment on Strategic Management Solutions’s extension is 4:30 p.m. ET on Oct. 24. Comments should be sent to Contract Specialist David Senderling, at [email protected].
The deadline is also Oct. 24 for Pro2Serve, and comments should be sent to DOE Contracting Officer Daniel Burke, at [email protected].
Any rival vendor should provide “clear and convincing documentation demonstrating their capabilities” to do the technical support work, according to the notice. The Energy Department stressed, however, the notice is not a request for proposals.
