Barring some legal reversal, a Bechtel affiliate and subcontractor Los Alamos Technical Associates should take the reins at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico around Feb. 9.
Also, as of the day before Thanksgiving, three major opportunities for new business remained across the old weapons complex and three contractors awaited decisions on extensions.
At the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, losing bidders for the potentially 10-year, $3-billion award, could still file a case with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.There was no word by deadline Wednesday on if contract teams led by Westinghouse and Huntington Ingalls Industries, who recently lost Government Accountability Office bid protests, might go that route.
A Westinghouse spokesperson declined comment and a spokesperson for Huntington Ingalls could not immediately be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, two of the biggest prizes looming from Environmental Management, at the Hanford Site in Washington state and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, could be awarded early in the New Year, a top procurement boss said in September.
The timeline was cited by Environmental Management procurement executive Angela Watmore during a meeting of DOE citizens advisory board chairs in New Mexico. Both awards were in the evaluation phase, Watmore said.
The Integrated Tank Disposition Contract for the Hanford Site melds the tank management contract held by Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions with operation of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant being built by Bechtel.
The integrated contract, which hit the street 13 months ago is potentially worth $45 billion over 10 years.
December or January could see the award of the Decontamination and Decommissioning Contract at the Portsmouth gaseous diffusion plant complex in Ohio, potentially worth $5.9 billion over 10 years. The solicitation was issued in May for a straightforward follow-on to the current work held by Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth. The incumbent’s existing contract that started in March 2011 is currently slated to expire March 28, 2023.
Teams led by BWXT and Amentum are in the hunt for the new Portsmouth remediation contract.
Issuance of the potential 10-year, $2.9-billion Portsmouth Paducah Operations and Site Mission Support contract should come later in 2023, Watmore said. That solicitation also released in May combines depleted uranium hexafluoride work at Portsmouth and the Paducah Site in Kentucky with certain operations chores at the two properties. Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services has a $717-million contract that began in February 2017 and is slated to end by March 28, 2023.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Management field office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico could soon exercise its first option period with legacy cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B). The five-year base period of the potential 10-year, $1.5-billion contract ends April 29, 2023.
Elsewhere DOE has signaled the contract for a new infrastructure project at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee will likely be extended. A joint venture of APTIM and North Wind Group will not finish construction of the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility by expiration of the current four-year, $117-million contract.
As for upcoming solicitations, Environmental Management announced in September it could issue a request for proposals for a new Occupational Medical Services contract at the Hanford Site as early as February. Incumbent HPM signed a potential seven-year, $152-million contract in 2018 and the DOE has already picked up the first two-year option, slated to run through December 2023.
