The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will within the next 13 days release a request for proposals for protective force services at the Nevada National Security Site, according to a special notice posted Wednesday.
The sources sought solicitation said the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency is seeking a contractor for work to be performed at the 1,370-square-mile Nevada site, the Remote Sensing Laboratory at Nellis Air Force Base, and the North Las Vegas Complex.
Protective force strength is authorized at 180 security police officers and 24 duty officers, the solicitation said, and the contract is expected to be a performance-based fixed price/time and materials hybrid with a total five-year term worth approximately $270 million.
Under the contract, the force would serve 24 hours a day, 365 days per year to protect nuclear explosive devices, special nuclear material, national security operations and related equipment, classified information, government facilities, and employees, the draft performance work statement said.
The protective force at the site is represented by the Independent Guard Association of Nevada, the solicitation said. The chosen contractor would be bound by the current collective bargaining agreement effective from 2014 to 2019.
The Nevada National Security Site supports the NNSA through stockpile stewardship, nonproliferation and counterterrorism activities, radioactive waste management, and national emergency response programs. The protective forces RFP will be released via fedbizopps.gov.
The contract is a re-compete of the one currently held by Centerra, the incumbent for over 50 years that also serves at other Department of Energy sites.
DARPA Field Tests Mobile Radiation Detectors in D.C.
The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has completed its first large-scale field test of mobile radiation detectors in Washington, D.C. this fall.
The field test involved hundreds of volunteers carrying “low-cost, high-efficiency” devices the size of smartphones throughout the city in a test of DARPA’s SIGMA program, which involves networked sensors that provide real-time radiation detection in urban areas. The sensors are designed to detect gamma and neutron radiation and via a smartphone network alert officials of potential threats in real time, the agency said.
The system is intended to detect small quantities of radioactive material that could be used in the development and detonation of a radiological “dirty bomb,” it said.
DARPA said in its announcement that “the 1,000-detector deployment in Washington, D.C., marked the largest number of SIGMA mobile detectors ever tested at one time and was a demonstration of the program’s ability to fuse the data provided by all those sensors to create minute-to-minute situational awareness of nuclear threats.”
The field test was largely carried out by the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism; ROTC cadets from D.C.-region universities and midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy were recruited as volunteers.
DARPA said it will continue to test the system’s monitoring capability next year and provide local, state, and federal entities with the operational system in 2018.
Physical Security Upgrades Completed at Uzbekistan’s Radiological Waste Disposal Site
The National Nuclear Security Administration and the governments of the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan conducted a final assessment of physical protection upgrades at the Republican Establishment of Radioactive Waste Burial in Uzbekistan, the U.S. agency announced Thursday.
The $330,000 security project is one of many joint efforts conducted to prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism, NNSA said. The agency’s Office of Radiological Security offers training and security technologies to radiological material users worldwide, with the goal of securing radioactive sources used in medical, research, and commercial applications.
“Secure end-of-life management of radioactive sources is critical to securing them from theft. The significant security enhancements to this facility are an example of a country taking seriously its commitment to address safety and security throughout a source’s lifecycle,” Anne Harrington, NNSA’s deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation, said in a statement.
