Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
2/13/2015
A draft Request for Proposals for a new cleanup contract for the Los Alamos National Laboratory could be issued in the next several months, acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Mark Whitney said late this week. The new contract is intended to cover work currently performed by the lab’s managing contractor, Los Alamos National Security, and is part of DOE’s efforts to shift responsibility for the legacy cleanup at Los Alamos to EM, away from the National Nuclear Security Administration. At a meeting the Energy Communities Alliance held in Washington, Whitney said a draft RFP is anticipated to be “out on the street probably later this summer.”
On the sidelines of the meeting, Whitney told WC Monitor that DOE has not yet made a final decision as to whether one contract or multiple contracts will be employed. He also said that the current companies that make up LANS, which includes Bechtel, B&W and AECOM, would not be prevented from bidding on the new cleanup contract. “I don’t think we would prevent anybody from bidding on a contract. I think we would closely evaluate all proposals that came in and try to get the best value for the government and the company that’s most capable of doing the work,” Whitney said.
DOE Anticipates 18-to-24 Months for New Contract
DOE announced last fall its intent to shift responsibility for the remaining legacy cleanup at Los Alamos away from the NNSA to EM. The move came after violations were discovered in how transuranic waste was processed at Los Alamos and after a drum processed at the lab was linked to the radiological release that occurred in early 2014 at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant that has shut down that facility. DOE said last fall that it would take approximately 18-to-24 months to have a new contract in place. In the interim, EM is working to finalize a “bridge” contract to allow EM to manage the cleanup work being performed by LANS, which is a contractor to the NNSA, until the new cleanup contract is in place, according to Whitney.
EM Close to Standing Up New Los Alamos Field Office
Whitney also said at the ECA meeting that the “formal standup” of the new EM Los Alamos Field Office is expected “within the next few weeks,” and that EM expects to begin in the near-term a search for a manager to head the office. “Right now, with the WIPP incidents and our look at the processes, particularly waste operations, at LANL, it’s a very important time to have the right person that we have confidence in in that job,” he said. The NNSA Los Alamos Field Office’s cleanup programs are currently headed by Assistant Manager Pete Maggiore, an NNSA employee reporting to LANL Field Office Manager Kim Davis Lebak, though most of the other federal workers in the cleanup program are EM employees.