The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management (EM) on Friday was completing its debriefing sessions for teams that bid on the Savannah River Site liquid waste management contract, sources told Weapons Complex Monitor.
The agency announced on Oct. 12 that Savannah River EcoManagement, a partnership of BWX Technologies, Bechtel National, and Honeywell International, had won a contract valued at $4.7 billion over 10 years at the South Carolina facility. EcoManagement was believed to be receiving its debriefing on Friday, sources said.
The two runner-up ventures reportedly had their debriefing sessions with DOE on Thursday in Aiken, S.C., near the Savannah River Site.
The current waste contract is held by Savannah River Remediation, a team led by AECOM with partners Bechtel National, CH2M, and BWXT.
The Environmental Management office has said it received three bid proposals in response to the solicitation for the liquid waste contract. Along with the EcoManagement team, AECOM and CH2M remained partners in the bidding, while the third group was believed to be comprised of Fluor and Westinghouse Government Services.
The debriefings offer an opportunity for DOE officials to give more detail on the criteria behind the contract selection decision. The sessions provide a means for vendors to learn more about what happened, and sometimes provide grist for a potential contract protest. Losers typically have 10 days to file protests.
“I don’t know what we are going to do yet, but I suspect one or two of the bidder [teams] will probably protest,” a source connected with one of the losing proposals said Friday.
The source, who said he had communicated with people who’d been in the Thursday briefing, said he expected any protests to be filed with the Government Accountability Office by Wednesday, Nov. 1. That is evidently when the clock starts on a 90-day transition to the new contractor absent a challenge.
The source said DOE’s evaluation in this case evidently had not ranked the three proposals and had not recommended a winner, in a move the person called very unusual. As a result, it seems the actual selection decision was made by EM headquarters, the source added.
DOE officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning.
None of the companies contacted this week by Weapons Complex Monitor elected to comment on the record for this article.
The contract features a base period of seven years, including a transition period, and an option period of three years. The work involves overseeing existing radioactive facilities for storage, treatment, and disposal of liquid waste at Savannah River. It also calls for eventually taking over operation of the Salt Waste Processing Facility that has been built by Parsons.