The head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico told local officials Tuesday that awarding a new environmental management contract for the facility is taking longer than expected.
“We had expected that the announcement would have already been made on that,” LANL Director Charles McMillan told a meeting of the Los Alamos County Council, “but it’s going to be a little bit in the future.”
Video of McMillan’s comments regarding the contract competition were posted to YouTube by the Los Alamos Daily Post.
Other reports this week suggested the new contract would be issued in October.
The Energy Department had earlier projected the contract would be awarded from June to August of this year. The current bridge contract for legacy nuclear cleanup, held by lab management and operations prime Los Alamos National Security (LANS), expires at the end of this month.
It appears unlikely that LANS – a partnership of Bechtel National, BWX Technologies, AECOM, and the University of California – would secure the follow-on contract after a waste container from the Los Alamos National Laboratory caused the 2014 radiation release that closed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., for nearly three years.
Energy Department contractors Fluor and CH2M are believed to be among the bidders for the new contract, an industry source told Weapons Complex Monitor recently.
The deal is anticipated to have a performance term lasting up to 10 years, for management of waste produced at the lab from 1970 to 1998. Management of more recent waste remains under the purview of DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees LANL.
Activities carried out under the new award would include remediation of contaminated facilities at the laboratory; collection and preparation of legacy mixed-low level radioactive waste and transuranic waste for transport to permanent storage; and decontamination, decommissioning, and demolition of “facilities that impede the timely execution of environmental restoration activities.”
Environmental management operations account for about 8 percent of the budget at the lab, McMillan said.
