The Department of Energy on Wednesday on Tuesday issued a request for information (RFI)/sources sought for the next stage in cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management is officially calling this “Phase 1B” of deactivating and tearing down buildings at West Valley, plus conducting soil remediation.
The $542 million Phase 1 contract held by a CH2M-BWX Technologies joint venture, which started in August 2011, expires in March 2020. The Energy Department, in the RFI, is seeking feedback on innovative approaches that might accelerate the ultimate completion of cleanup.
While this is not a draft request for proposals, the market research will provide DOE with key data as it goes forward with an upcoming procurement.
A detailed statement of the work to be performed under the next contract is not available yet, DOE said. The RFI does invite contractors to describe their ability and experience in federal environmental remediation work, and their background in dealing with employee retirement plans.
Jodi Gordon ([email protected]) is the contracting officer for the upcoming procurement. Responses to the RFI should be emailed by close of business on Nov. 1 to [email protected].
The Energy Department has not yet indicated when it would begin accepting bids on the next contract for West Valley. When reached Wednesday, a BWXT spokesman deferred any comment to CH2M.
Owned by the state, the property takes up 200 acres of the 3,300-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center. The site was home to a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant from 1966 to 1972. In 1980, Congress put DOE in charge of remediation and placed 90 percent of the funding burden on the federal agency, with the remainder paid by the state.
Completion of Phase 1 is currently expected by 2030 , a decade longer than DOE and the state envisioned in an environmental impact statement issued in 2010.
