Although the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup wing awarded two multibillion-dollar environmental deals in 2023, work has not started on any of the four contracts it prioritized for the past calendar year.
On paper at least, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management awarded the $45-billion Hanford Site Integrated Tanks contract in Washington state along with the $5.9-billion Decontamination and Decommissioning contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio.
But the award of the Hanford tank contract to a group led by BWX Technologies remains tied up in court.
And although not protested, Amentum-led Southern Ohio Cleanup Co. is still waiting to start transition to its contract at Portsmouth, more than seven months after receiving the award. That’s because DOE has yet to award a companion contract, the Portsmouth Paducah Project Office Operations and Site Mission, which included depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion.
Some environmental work previously done under the Portsmouth cleanup contract will move to the Portsmouth Paducah Project Office contract. The Portsmouth Paducah Project Office contract along with the Small Business Nationwide Deactivation Decommissioning and Removal contract were both listed as procurement priorities for Environmental Management in 2023 but to date have not been awarded.
In its priorities list for 2024, the clean up office lists three additional procurements: issuance of a Naval Reactor Decommissioning and Removal task order; award of an Elemental Mercury Long-term Storage contract and releasing the final request for proposals for Phase 1B of the West Valley Demonstration Project Deactivation and Decommissioning contract in New York state.
