The Department of Energy extended the bid deadline for a new Carlsbad Technical Assistance Contract by one week, to Dec. 23.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced the extra time in a package of questions and answers published Dec. 11 on a procurement website. Previously, bids were due Dec. 14.
In a final Q&A package published Wednesday, the DOE made clear that it will consider relative experience during the past five years.
The DOE acknowledged last week it has issued a six-month extension to North Wind Portage, the current provider of technical assistance to DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico that oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
The incumbent contractor will stay on the job until June 3, 2021. The extension brings the total value of the contract, which began in December 2015, to about $51 million.
The new Carlsbad technical assistance small business set-aside contract could be worth up to $100 million over five years, DOE has said.
The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 15 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during November.
There were five from the Idaho National Laboratory, six from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, three from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and one from the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, according to the latest publicly-available information on the database for the site.
There have been 182 shipments of transuranic waste to the underground salt mine site during the first 11 months of 2020. That is significantly less than the 285 shipments recorded during the first 11 months of 2019.
The November 2020 shipment total of 15 is, however, higher than the November 2019 shipment total of 10, according to the database for the waste site.
Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have pointed to reduced operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, wintry weather during the first quarter and a somewhat longer-than-usual maintenance outage as some of the reasons for the year’s lower throughput.
The draft Record of Decision on a proposed 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is being delayed once again, with the new publication target being next July.
The document was previously scheduled for publication this week by the DOE Office of Environmental Management at Oak Ridge. But spokespeople for the federal cleanup office and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation said not to expect the document before summer.
“We recently received approval” from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to extend the record of decision submittal date” until then, a DOE spokesperson at Oak Ridge said Tuesday by email.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee agency, Kim Schofinski, confirmed that DOE has asked to delay delivery of the first draft of the Environmental Management Waste Management record of decision until then.
The new landfill will replace the existing Environmental Management Waste Management Facility, which is expected to be maxed out by the middle of this decade. The current landfill holds debris mostly from structures torn down at the East Tennessee Technology Park, Oak Ridge’s former K-25 uranium enrichment complex. The new landfill would take low-level radioactive and mixed waste from remediation work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Before a draft decision is issued, DOE, Tennessee and the Environmental Protection Agency hope to iron out a dispute over regulation of wastewater effluents containing radionuclides at Oak Ridge. The DOE contends EPA’s Region 4 in Atlanta seeks to enforce tougher standards for runoff management than what is in place at other U.S. nuclear properties.
The Washington state Department of Ecology will hold an online public hearing Jan. 21 on proposed modifications to certain facilities at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site.
The DOE and contractor Washington River Protection Solutions seek a class 2 modification to allow expansion of loading areas at the Liquid Effluent Retention Facility and the 200 Area Effluent Treatment Facility.
According to an Ecology summary, DOE and the contractor want to expand the footprint of the building, remove a couple of abandoned tanks and rework a concrete floor to allow unloading of large tanker trucks. The plan also recommends designing and developing a backup load-in station that could be used when the facility is out of service.
The Liquid Effluent Retention Facility and the 200 Area Effluent Treatment Facility are both mixed-waste treatment and storage units for handling effluents from ongoing operations at Hanford. The projects include the 242-A Evaporator and the Effluent Management Facility that will soon come online for the Waste Treatment Plant. The Waste Treatment Plant is scheduled to start converting low-activity waste into a glass-like substance by the end of 2023.
The public hearing is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time on Jan. 21. A link to the meeting can be found here. A public comment period started Dec. 15 and runs until Feb. 13. After the close of the comment period, Ecology will make a final decision on the modification.
