The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has selected a Bechtel National-led joint venture to manage the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., starting as soon as October.
In a Monday afternoon press release, the federal agency announced the award of the potential 10-year, $3-billion contract to Reston, Va.,-based Tularosa Basin Range Services, LLC. The Bechtel National single-purpose entity will utilize Los Alamos Technical Associate as its subcontractor, DOE said.
The Bechtel-led contractor was chosen among five bidders, DOE said. The new contract will include a four-year base period followed by a series of six one-year options.
Barring a successful contract challenge, the Bechtel team will succeed Nuclear Waste Partnership, a team of Amentum and BWX Technologies. The Nuclear Waste Partnership team has held the business since October 2012 under a contract currently valued at $2.7-billion and scheduled to expire in September.
The current contract was marked by a February 2014 underground radiation leak from a drum of transuranic waste incorrectly packaged at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which a Bechtel-led team was managing at the time. The drum burst open underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), contaminating portions of the mine and forcing suspension of transuranic waste disposal for nearly three years.
At the time of the underground accident, Bechtel was senior industrial partner in Los Alamos National Security, then the prime contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory and in charge of both active nuclear weapons work and legacy nuclear-weapons cleanup.
WIPP is the nation’s only underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste.
“The mission to safely dispose of defense-related nuclear waste is vitally important for protecting people and the planet,” Bechtel spokesman Fred deSousa said in a Tuesday emailed statement. “We’re honored to be entrusted with this mission and look forward to joining the WIPP team and the Carlsbad community.”
The DOE issued a request for proposals for a new WIPP follow-on contract in June 2021.
