The Energy Department now anticipates reissuing the liquid waste management contract for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by the end of this month, according to the latest schedule for major procurements at its Office of Environmental Management.
The DOE nuclear cleanup office posted the latest timeline on Nov. 19. It supersedes an Oct. 1 chart that envisioned the liquid waste award by the end of October. Rumors have flown since at least September that the announcement could be imminent.
The agency does not typically comment on active procurements, and did not immediately respond to a question of the status of the contract on Monday.
The Energy Department in October 2017 made its initial award for a 10-year contract potentially worth $4.7 billion to BWX Technologies-led Savannah River EcoManagement. But the deal came undone in February when the Government Accountability Office upheld a bid protest by an AECOM-CH2M team, saying DOE had not properly vetted the winner’s technical approach for liquid waste management.
The Energy Department last spring offered the three original bidders, including a Fluor-Westinghouse team, an opportunity to submit revised proposals.
Because the process has dragged on this long, one industry source said last week he thinks the cleanup office might restart the whole procurement from scratch rather than award the contract to any of the three bidders. The winning vendor will be responsible for treatment, stabilization, and eventually disposing of over 30 million gallons of Cold War-related liquid waste. The contractor also will also ultimately become operator of the Salt Waste Processing Facility at SRS.
For now, AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation remains in charge of SRS liquid waste management under a contract extension through March 2019.