The BWX Technologies-led nuclear remediation contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management have inked an eight-year task order for the next stages of cleanup, the site’s Citizens Advisory Board heard Tuesday.
Michael Budney, DOE’s operations manager for the Savannah River nuclear cleanup, said the agency and Savannah River Mission Completion successfully executed the deal by Sept. 30 in order to avoid any potential lapse in work. The prior task order expires Sept. 30.
The task order is worth “billions of dollars,” Budney said. The contractor team, made up of BWXT, Amentum and Fluor, started work on the potential 10-year, $21-billion liquid waste contract in October 2021. The end state contract uses indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity task orders to help define the emerging scope of work, according to DOE.
The contractor and Environmental Management have been working since the first quarter of this year to consummate the long-term task order, Budney said.
DOE now uses what it calls end-state contracts as a means to manage long-term cleanup through indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery contracts, Environmental Management acquisitions boss Angela Watmore, told the National Cleanup Workshop earlier in September. DOE says this helps the agency avoid writing a decade’s worth of rules for site cleanup before the government even puts a company under contract to do the work.
Meanwhile, Budney, said he would not comment on another Sept. 30 deadline that will affect the 310-square mile Savannah River Site.
“I know people have a lot of questions about the budget process,” for fiscal 2024, which starts Oct. 1. “As we know the budget process has some issues right now … they are trying to work out in Congress … We are not authorized to talk about that, and that’s all I have to say about that.”
