A Department of Energy official confirmed that the transition of contractors at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center at Oak Ridge will be completed this week, with North Wind Solutions officially taking over responsibility for management and operations at 6 a.m . Friday.
North Wind was awarded the $123.9 million contract – with a three-year base and a two-year option – in June, but the transition of contractors did not begin until mid-October because three of the other bidders filed protests following the award. Those protests were either dropped or eventually denied by the Government Accountability Office.
Sue Cange, the DOE environmental manager in Oak Ridge, planned to visit the waste-processing facility on Wednesday, along with Mark Whitney, DOE’s principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management, and others to recognize Wastren Advantage for its work over the past five years and to welcome officials from Idaho-based North Wind – which has been working previously as a subcontractor to WAI at the Oak Ridge facility.
“We’re going to thank WAI for their service and their contributions to completing our transuranic waste processing mission and welcome North Wind as our new contractor to come on board and complete the processing of the debris material sometime in the next approximately three years or so,” Cange said.
