Bidding Closes on Next SRS Liquid Waste Contract

It was pencils down Tuesday for aspirant Energy Department contractors bidding on a 10-year liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., that could be worth $4 billion to $6 billion, including an option.

AECOM, lead on the Savannah River Remediation (SRR) consortium in charge of the work today under an eight-year, $4.1 billion contract that expires in June, confirmed last month it would pursue the decade-long follow-up deal.

Some of the participants in the incumbent partnership have confirmed their interest in the work, if not their outright intention to bid.

In July, SRR partner Bechtel Corp. of San Francisco  said it would “carefully evaluate the opportunity.”  An industry source subsequently told Weapons Complex Monitor Bechtel is part of a team bidding on the work.

The now-nuclear-focused BWX Technologies, another SRR partner, was noncommittal but not dismissive about its interest in remaining aboard for more Savannah River Site liquid waste work.

“BWXT has previously indicated that it is interested in a number of significant contract opportunities for the Department of Energy, but we don’t have any announcements to make at  this time regarding our bid activity,” company spokesman Jud Simmons wrote Tuesday in an email.

SRR partner CH2M and top contractor AREVA did not respond by deadline to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Fluor Corp., which in February sniped $5 billion worth of cleanup work at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory from a competitor widely believed to be AECOM, on Tuesday declined to discuss its role, if any, in the latest SRS cleanup competition. Fluor “cannot confirm at this time” whether the company was taking on its Los Angeles-based rival at Savannah River, company spokeswoman Annika Toenniessen wrote in an email.

The department currently envisions a contract with an eight-year base period and a two-year option. The contract continues the main cleanup work at the site: turning some 36 million highly radioactive liquid waste left over from Cold War nuclear weapons operations into more easily storable radioactive glass.

The contract calls for cleaning up 10 tanks’ worth of bulk waste, including eight in the deal’s eight-year base period, and closing down seven tanks, including five in the base period.

The winner of the contract will also be responsible for preparing for on-site storage some 72 million gallons of radioactive salt waste extracted from liquid tank waste by the Salt Waste Processing Facility built by Parsons Government Services. That includes 42 million gallons of salt waste in the eight-year base period.