The Government Accountability Office on Oct. 8 denied Aerostar Perma-Fix TRU Services’ (APT Services) protest of the Energy Department’s June 18 award of a three- to five-year $123.9 million support services contract for the Oak Ridge Transuranic Waste Processing Center to North Wind Solutions, according to an Oct. 9 press release from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. APT Services filed its protest on July 6, one day before Omega TRU Solutions filed its protest, and seven days before ARS EnergX filed a third protest. Omega and ARS EnergX later withdrew their protests, according to the release. DOE is now prepared to start transitioning to the mostly firm-fixed-price contract, which includes a three-year base period with one two-year option.
“In an effort to better align Contractor and taxpayer interests, the contract contains FFP and Cost-Plus-Award-Fee (CPAF) Contract Line Items (CLINs), as well as an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) CLIN,” the release states. “The primarily FFP nature of the contract will allow DOE to shift cost risk from the Government to the Contractor during execution of the contract requirements.” The contract’s scope entails management and operation of TWPC, which will include surveillance and maintenance activities, providing support to the central characterization project for final certification and disposition of TRU soil and debris waste, processing other remote-handled or contact-handled TRU waste originating from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and processing of “Nuclear Fuel Services soils.”
TWPC is located within a DOE-owned 26-acre plot of land in support of Oak Ridge’s EM Office.