The award of seven field site technical assistance contracts together worth up to $120 million over five years was announced this week by the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office.
The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts were awarded to S&K Mission Support, AKIMA Systems Engineering, ARS Aleut Remediation, Catawba Engineering and Environmental Services, Energy Technology Alliance, FPM-AECOM JV1 and Street Legal Industries, DOE said in a Tuesday press release.
In the same release, the Office of Environmental Management also said the initial task order for the field office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to S&K Mission Support, an agreement worth $7.2 million over 18 months. The technical assistance work will range from data management to nuclear safety to safeguards and security, DOE said.
The dearth of child daycare available around the Department of Energy weapons complex is something that inhibits the agency’s ability to recruit younger workers, various speakers told the National Cleanup Workshop Thursday in Arlington, Va.
It’s almost impossible to find daycare “inside the fence” at nuclear cleanup properties overseen by the DOE Office of Environmental Management, Kristen Ellis, who heads the office’s regulatory and stakeholder affairs, told a workforce panel discussion.
The lack of child care was also cited by John Eschenberg, president of Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “We need to help our employees solve daycare,” Eschenberg said.
Speakers cited data indicated perhaps half of the workforce at Environmental Management could be eligible to retire within five years. In addition, Eschenberg questions if the hybrid work structure triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 might actually hinder developing a new cadre of managers across the weapons complex. The annual conference is hosted by the Energy Communities Alliance.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management could issue a final solicitation for Hanford Site Occupational Medical Services at the nuclear cleanup property in Washington state by February 2023.
The onsite employee medical business at the Hanford Site is currently the only final request for proposals (RFP) that DOE envisions between now and then, the Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center in Cincinnati said in a special notice Wednesday on the federal procurement website, SAM.gov.
The agency started its market research on a potential RFP in July. Incumbent signed a potential seven-year, $152-million contract in 2018 and the DOE has already picked up the first two-year option keeping the current provider on through at least December 2023. If the agency exercises the second option, HPM could stay on through 2025.
The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers expects to solicit bids by the end of October for a small business to build a viewing platform next to a museum at the old K-25 gaseous diffusion plant grounds at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
The Nashville District of the US Army Corps of Engineers intends to issue “an invitation for bid” by Oct. 31 and will hold a pre-bid site visit for interested providers on Nov. 9 at 10 a.m. Eastern Time at the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, according to a Thursday notice on a federal procurement website.
The scope of work will be attached with the planned request for proposals announcement, the Corps said in the notice. The solicitation will be open to small businesses meeting a $39.5-million size limit.
Pre-registration is required by 3 p.m. Central Time on Nov. 3 for the site visit and pre-bid briefings. To register, email Robert “Todd” Allman and Dellaria Martin at [email protected] and [email protected].
The DOE Environmental Management Office and the Army Corps are working together to build the observation platform next to the K-25 History Center, DOE said earlier this year. The DOE has said it expects platform construction to be finished by the end of 2023. Construction should start this year, within 30 days of issuance of the contract, the Army Corps said in last week’s procurement notice.
