In The Industry
Wastren-EnergX Mission Support netted a $1.4 million award fee from the Energy Department in 2015 for supporting ongoing uranium enrichment cleanup at DOE’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, the company said March 17.
Wastren-EnergX Mission Support’s latest award amounts to 98 percent of the available award for 2015 on the five-year, $42 million facility support services contract DOE awarded the Piketon-based company in 2010, according to an Energy Department award fee determination scorecard.
Work ordered under the contract, which will expire in April, includes: site and cyber security; training; information technology; telecommunications; records management; fleet management; and maintenance.
URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, the Energy Department’s remediation manager in Oak Ridge, Tenn., has awarded three small-business subcontracts totaling nearly $1 million for cleanup-related services, according to an announcement from the contractor.
ESG Construction of Knoxville received a $450,000 contract to replace the “Heat-Trace Controls at the Liquid and Gaseous Waste Operations” at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Construction Technology Specialists, based in Albuquerque, N.M., received two contracts — totaling about $454,000 — for work at the East Tennessee Technology Park. One is to modify the cooling tower piping, while the other is for modifications of sump pump overflow piping.
In a statement, UCOR small business manager Freda Hopper said the contractor’s commitment to small business has been integral to its success. “We intend to continue our partnership with small businesses throughout our contract period with the goal of exceeding DOE’s expectations for small business contracting.”
EnergySolutions Shrugs Off Lawsuit From Environmental Dimensions
EnergySolutions on Tuesday played down a lawsuit filed by its former partner on a major remediation project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), saying it never received a copy of a January complaint from Environmental Dimensions Inc., of Albuquerque N.M.
Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions, by far the larger of the two companies, was a subcontractor to Environmental Dimensions on a potentially $200 million contract for transuranic waste cleanup at LANL.
In a complaint filed Jan. 31 in New Mexico’s Second Judicial District — which includes Albuquerque, but not LANL — Environmental Dimensions alleged EnergySolutions ultimately cost the Albuquerque-based company a chance to collect the full $200 million it could have received from LANL prime contractor Los Alamos National Security under a master task order agreement-2 catalog-style contract for transuranic waste processing.
“The allegations are not true,” an EnergySolutions spokesperson said by email. “To my knowledge the complaint was never served on EnergySolutions and was filed only to secure a venue because EnergySolutions is attempting to collect amounts due and owing from Environmental Dimensions.”
EnergySolutions is attempting to collect $1.1 million from Environmental Dimensions, which the smaller company refuses to pay on the grounds it never authorized the larger company to do some of the work for which it is attempting to collect fees, according to the complaint.
The Environmental Dimensions claim relates to EnergySolutions’ role in the 2014 underground radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., the complaint says. A 2015 DOE accident investigation board report found EnergySolutions and the lab had in 2011 allowed an organic absorbent to be allowed into transuranic waste barrels, one of which later burst open at WIPP. The facility has since then been closed to waste shipments, though DOE hopes to reopen the site in December of this year.
In its lawsuit, Environmental Dimensions alleged EnergySolutions knew, or should have known, that its actions in 2011 would cost the smaller company revenue under its 2012 contract with Los Alamos National Security. After the 2014 radiation release at WIPP, Environmental Dimensions said in its complaint, Los Alamos National Security moved “to void or reduce tasks” the company could have been paid to do under the 2012 contract.
DOE to Solicit Bids for LANL TRU Liquid Waste Facility This Year
The Energy Department said this week it will solicit bids to build a transuranic liquid waste processing facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the fourth quarter.
The contract for the so-called Transuranic Liquid Waste Project will be worth between $15 million and $20 million, DOE said in a procurement note posted online Tuesday. The multistory facility will take up about 3,750 square feet and replace the lab’s current Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility, according to the pre-solicitation note.
“The facility will include process equipment such as tanks, piping, a micro filter, a drum evaporator system, and associated support areas such as a drum preparation and storage area, personal protective equipment don and doff room, decontamination room, and telecommunication, electrical, fire riser, and mechanical rooms,” DOE wrote in the note.
The work is for a Hazard Category 3 nuclear facility, so DOE will consider only bidders that meet the federal Nuclear Quality Assurance-1, according to the note.
Marts to Lead AECOM Consulting Subsidiary
Terri Marts has been appointed president of AECOM subsidiary Professional Solutions, the parent company said Monday.
Marts will be the top executive with Professional Solutions, which provides “engineering, consulting and nuclear safety analyses” to the Energy Department and commercial nuclear power companies, according to an AECOM press release.
Marts was most recently AECOM’s vice president of high-level waste mission integration, leading the company’s work at DOE’s Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., where the agency is cleaning up 56 million gallons of legacy waste from Cold War and pre-Cold War plutonium production. Marts led “the integration activities between the Waste Treatment Plant and the High-level Waste Tank Operations,” the company stated.
Marts has also worked as a vice president and general manager at URS Corp., and as president of URS’ Washington Defense Group, a “global threat reduction and defense business,” AECOM wrote.
