The two incumbents at the Idaho Cleanup Project, Fluor and Spectra Tech, are virtually certain to be among the contenders for a follow-up environmental award that could be worth $6.4 billion, sources say.
Fluor Idaho now holds the five-year environmental remediation contract for the Idaho National Laboratory, valued at nearly $2 billion through May 2021. Spectra Tech has a five-year, $45 million spent fuel management contract that runs through next March. All those services are being combined in the new procurement.
Several industry sources contacted this month consider it a sure bet that Irving, Texas-based Fluor and Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Spectra Tech will be part of joint ventures seeking the new business. Fluor has declined comment and Spectra Tech has not responded to requests for comment.
Some sources, including a couple who attended the February industry day for the contract, said to keep an eye on the “usual suspects” – the other big names that are frequently in the running for contracts issued by the Office of Environmental Management. That could include Amentum (the former AECOM Management Services), Bechtel, and BWX Technologies, they said. They all apparently had representatives at the February briefing.
Another industry source said Westinghouse, currently a minority partner in the Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services venture, is putting together a team. Mid-America’s uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion contract for DOE is worth $459 million over five years ending in January 2022. Atkins also had several people at the Idaho briefings.
None of the sources contacted, however, was able to detail composition of actual teams likely to submit proposals. Most contractors doing business within the DOE nuclear complex are generally loath to speak publicly about specific contracts they are pursuing.
Jacobs, which now owns onetime Idaho cleanup project contractor CH2M, also participated in the industry day. Huntington International Industries, which with BWXT owns the cleanup contract at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and also led an unsuccessful venture seeking a services contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state, had several representatives at the gathering.
The big players, which might team up with smaller partners, are drawn by the lucrative nature of the potential $6.4 billion indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with a 10-year ordering period. The actual work could last 15 years. The Energy Department published a final request for proposals on May 27. The deadline for submitting questions about the procurement was Wednesday and actual bid proposals are due July 28.
The solicitation covers environmental remediation operations such as protecting the Snake River Aquifer water source, operating the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, and preparing and shipping transuranic material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. It covers Spectra Tech’s current spent fuel management duties at INL and at the retired Fort Saint Vrain nuclear power plant near Platteville, Colo.
