Could Deactivation Contract be Awarded Soon?
Under the conditions of USEC’s lease, the handoff must be completed no later than Aug. 1, 2015. “A conditional fall timeframe was arrived at by considering the procurement schedule in combination with many other transition activities involving both DOE and USEC. To enable a Paducah deactivation contractor to begin deactivation work more quickly, fully compliant safety documents and programs are being developed now,” a DOE spokesperson said in a statement. The agreement also depends on sufficient funding being appropriated for the deactivation contractor, and USEC complying with numerous lease turnover requirements. “To the extent these conditions have not been satisfied by October 1, the return of the leased areas will be completed as quickly as possible after October 1, 2014, on a date mutually agreed to,” according to the USEC filing.
Fluor and AECOM Teams in the Running
The new Paducah deactivation task order, which is being competed under DOE’s set of national Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity cleanup contracts, is set to run for three years and be worth several hundred million dollars. The work is meant to serve as a bridge between USEC’s operations of the enrichment plant, which ended last year, and larger scale D&D of the site. Two teams have bid on the contract, Fluor-CB&I-LATA and AECOM-Stoller-Newport News, and in April DOE asked the two teams to submit best-and-final offers with responses due in early May.
Work to be performed under the task order will include facility deactivation, surveillance and maintenance and utility operations; deactivation, decontamination and demolition; the construction of an on-site disposal waste facility; and post-Gaseous Diffusion Plant shutdown cleanup activities. In April, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said DOE is looking to award the new Paducah contract in September—a schedule largely on track with the Department’s forecast for an award with discussions.
