As has been expected, the Energy Department on Tuesday issued a six-month extension for the current contract for legacy nuclear cleanup operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The department said Tuesday that Los Alamos National Security, the lab’s management and operations contractor, would also remain its environmental management provider through March 30, 2018. In a news release, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management placed the value of the six-month contract extension at $65 million.
LANS is a consortium of Bechtel National, AECOM, BWXT Technologies, and the University of California. It has conducted solid waste stabilization and soil and water remediation at the laboratory since taking over management in 2006, but appears unlikely to win the next long-term cleanup contract after a 2014 radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., was linked to a drum of improperly packaged radioactive waste from Los Alamos. The contractor’s current “bridge” contract for remediation services, worth nearly $310 million, expires on Saturday.
The extension gives DOE EM more time to complete the selection process for a longer-term cleanup contract agreement. It also provides time for Los Alamos National Security to complete treatment of nearly 90 additional containers of waste, some of which contain the combustible mix of nitrate salts and organic kitty litter that was the cause of the WIPP incident. Crews are adding an inert substance to the drums’ mixture to prevent another radiation incident.
LANS had originally hoped to finish before the Sept. 30 contract expiration date. But this summer it told DOE it expected to finish all work by April 2018.
The current management and operations contract for the lab expires on Sept. 30, 2018.
Also Tuesday, DOE said it had awarded a $19.3 million task order to Waste Control Specialists for continued storage in West Texas of transuranic and Greater-Than-Class-C waste from Los Alamos. Several hundred drums were sent to WCS’ storage complex in 2014 after the radiation incident closed WIPP. The waste eventually will be shipped to WIPP — but 113 drums contain “inappropriately remediated nitrate salts” like those being treated now at Los Alamos; DOE is currently studying treatment options for those containers.
The new task order features a two-year base, a one-year option, and a 100-day option.
