DOE to Begin Consent-Based Nuclear Waste Storage Meetings in Chicago

The Energy Department said Thursday it will hold the first of eight public meetings on its consent-based nuclear waste siting initiative March 29 in Chicago at the University of Chicago Conference Center.

In the eight meetings, DOE will “seek input from the public on designing a fair and effective process for siting the facilities needed to manage the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste,” according to the agency’s press release.

The following meeting is scheduled for April 11 in Atlanta at the Georgia Institute of Technology Conference Center, DOE said. Six more meetings will be held through July in Boise, Idaho; Boston; Denver, Colo.; Minneapolis; Sacramento, Calif.; and Tempe, Ariz., according to DOE.

The department said it hopes to get answers to these five questions:

• How can the Department ensure that the process for selecting a site is fair?
• What models and experience should the Department use in designing the process?
• Who should be involved in the process for selecting a site, and what is their role?
• What information and resources do you think would facilitate your participation?
• What else should be considered?

Those interested in attending any of the eight meetings can register online at energy.gov/consentbasedsiting.

DOE Logistics Manager to Small Businesses: Expand

Small businesses should consider expanding beyond their local service areas if they want to earn top marks under a DOE-chartered program aimed at streamlining purchases of standardized services and commodities across the agency, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Supply Chain Management Center (SCMC) said in meeting this week in Albuquerque, N.M.

Because SCMC is looking for goods and services that are generally ubiquitous to multiple DOE sites, the ideal small business would offer locally tailored services across the country in what SCMC Director Scott Bissen called  a “national, regional footprint.” Bissen addressed, then later took questions from, an audience of New Mexico-based small-business owners at the Albuquerque Convention Center as part of SCMC’s Small Business Information Meeting

SCMC was created in 2006 and is managed by Honeywell, which also runs NSSA’s National Security Campus in Kansas City, Mo.: the quasi-independent agency’s production and procurement hub for non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons.

SCMC negotiates with vendors that provide goods or services needed for the roughly $5 billion worth of support costs NNSA’s seven main facilities wrack up every year, Bissen said. The center also helps arrange buys at DOE Environmental Management cleanup sites, some of which are located at active NNSA-operated facilities.

SCMC does not award contracts. Instead, the group issues nonbinding agreements DOE prime contractors can use as a framework for support services subcontracts at both active and legacy Energy Department sites. Bissen estimated that while SCMC practices have saved DOE some $600 million over the last 10 years or so, only about 5 percent of the annual $5 billion support budget the group was established to help shrink was paid for with contracts created following an SCMC agreement.

“The primes don’t necessarily have to use SCMC agreements,” Bissen said.

Nevertheless, he said, more than half the total contract revenue resulting from SCMC arrangements since 2006 went to small businesses.

One area where SCMC notably has no presence, but could soon establish one, is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), 25 miles outside of Carlsbad, N.M. The underground storage facility for contaminated material and equipment shut its doors in February 2014 after an underground fire and radiation release and is slated to reopen in mid-December.

That means the Honeywell-managed group may have a chance to put its stamp on a new, centralized WIPP waste transportation procurement DOE plans to put out for bid this year.

“Our friends in WIPP have been very, very busy working on some other issues,” Bissen said. “As we go forward that relationship between WIPP and the SCMC will strengthen over time.”