A subsidiary of Pro2Serve, Enterprise Technical Assistance Services, (E-TAS), on Wednesday started work as the new technical services vendor for the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office cleanup complex, which is comprised of the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the Paducah Site in Kentucky, and the Lexington, Ky., headquarters.

The small-business set-aside has a potential term of five years, including a two-year option period, and total value of nearly $137 million for the Oak Ridge, Tenn., company.

The PPPO-wide contract replaces three smaller technical support services agreements issued in 2013 and previously held by Pro2Serve at Paducah, Oak Ridge- based RSI EnTech at Portsmouth, and Albuquerque, N.M. -based Strategic Management Solutions Inc. (SMSI) for depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion (DUF6) at the two former gaseous diffusion plants and PPPO headquarters.

In January, the Government Accountability Office rejected a bid protest by SMSI. While the GAO said the quality of the overall E-TAS and SMSI proposals were “substantially equal” in areas such as experience and key personnel, the Strategic Management bid cost about $6 million more at $143 million.

The contract for technical and administration support at Portsmouth/Paducah was initially issued to Enterprise Technical Assistance Services in June 2018. But DOE withdrew the award a couple months later after the rival’s first protested to the Government Accountability Office. That initial protest was never litigated before the GAO because the Energy Department withdrew the award.

The Energy Department subsequently reawarded the contract to E-TAS in August 2019.

In addition to technical and administrative support for the environmental work at the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office, the contract includes information technology, safeguards and security oversight, and various technical engineering chores.