Nearly a year after kicking off the competitive bidding process, the Department of Energy must soon decide whether to extend its current contract for transportation of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.
The current five-year, $112-million Carlsbad Transportation Services small business contract, held by CAST Specialty Transportation, is scheduled to expire May 27, according to a recently updated online chart by the DOE Office of Environmental Management.
A DOE spokesperson declined comment via email late last week and nothing new on the contract was posted on the federal procurement website, SAM.gov as of Friday.
The agency issued a final request for proposals for a new $100-million contract in June 2021, a couple of months after holding a pre-solicitation conference for prospective bidders. Incumbent CAST, as well as representatives for more than 15 other entities showed up for the gathering. In documents made public at the time, DOE said while the ceiling on the current contract is $112 million, the actual task order business for the waste hauler had amounted to less than a quarter of that total as of March 2021.
Likewise, DOE told potential bidders that it expected annual shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in future years to range between 500 and 800. But the facility has not come within shouting distance of that range since it went offline for nearly three years following a February 2014 underground radiation leak. The highest annual figure since the accident was been 311 in 2018.
