The Department of Energy should within a week brief bidders about the agency’s reasons for awarding a $45-billion Hanford Site liquid waste cleanup contract to a BWX Technologies-led venture, industry executives said this week.
As a result, any protest by a losing bidder should likely be filed with the Government Accountability Office by May 1 or so, one source told Exchange Monitor Monday. Government Accountability Office protests are typically filed soon after DOE briefs the parties on the award decision.
Multiple sources said the BWXT-Amentum-Fluor group beat out a joint venture led by Atkins.
A second industry manager, with a different company, said Tuesday morning the briefing for the losing team could come on Wednesday April 26, with the winning team being briefed the following day.
DOE’s Hanford site manager Brian Vance told the Hanford Advisory Board Wednesday that he typically assumes such big contracts will be protested.
Meanwhile, Lynchburg, Va.,-based BWXT and its partners in Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure, Amentum and Fluor, issued statements Monday saying they are eager to start work on the largest and most complex cleanup in the DOE weapons complex.
“This is the largest single contract award in our company’s history and is a stair-step achievement as we strengthen our leadership position in environmental restoration at highly technical projects across the nation,” said BWXT’s president and CEO Rex Geveden in a press release.
“Amentum and our partners have a tremendous track record of treating waste and managing nuclear operations around the DOE complex,” said Mark Whitney, president of Amentum’s National Security Group. “ Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions is the incumbent tank manager at the former plutonium production complex, Whitney said in a press release.
“We’ve been a proud member of the Tri-Cities community for more than 25 years, beginning with the Project Hanford Management Contract in 1996, through our role today on the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract,” Tom D’Agostino, group president of Fluor’s Mission Solutions business, said in a press release.
The BWXT-led team also has several teaming subcontractors. They are DBD, DSS Sustainable Solutions USA, , INTERA and Longenecker & Associates.
The contract, potentially worth $45 billion over a decade-long ordering period, includes running Hanford tank farms, emptying tanks and eventual operation of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, being built by Bechtel, to solidify radioactive waste into glass logs.
About 56 million gallons of radioactive waste left over from decades of plutonium production are held in 177 underground tanks at Hanford.
