With the award of a follow-on contract taking longer than expected, the Department of Energy will extend major cleanup contracts at shuttered gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio and Kentucky for up to six months, the agency said after Christmas
DOE’s Office of Environmental Management intends to extend Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s Decontamination and Decommissioning contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio until potentially Sept. 30, 2024, according to an online notice posted. Dec. 26. Without an extension the incumbent’s contract, which started in August 2010 and is currently valued at $5-billion, would end on March 30.
In a separate but largely identical notice, DOE announced an extension of up to six months for Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services. The team provides depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) cleanup at Portsmouth and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. Without the extension Mid-America’s contract, which started in November 2016 and is valued at $788-million, would also expire March 30.
DOE is trying to sync the start of new contracts at the two sites, but the award of the follow-on Paducah pact, which in addition to DUF6 work will fold in site-services duties at both sites, is taking longer than expected.
The Portsmouth follow-on, meanwhile, is settled. In July, DOE awarded a new $5.87-billion contract at the Ohio site to Amentum-led Southern Ohio Cleanup.
But DOE is holding off on changing contractors at Portsmouth because certain environmental work covered by the current Portsmouth cleanup contract will be conveyed to the still-unawarded Operations and Site Mission Support contract for both the Ohio property and the Paducah Site in Kentucky.
The industry continues to bide its time waiting on final award of the new Portsmouth-Paducah contract that melds DUF6 with other cross-site responsibilities.
