The announcement follows a ruling by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that dismissed a protest of the contract by competing bidder Hanford Tank Disposition Alliance (HTDA), which is led by Atkins with partners Jacobs and Westinghouse. The court found that HTDA’s arguments were not enough to prevent the DOE from moving forward with the contract. The court opinion, written by judge Marian Blank Horn, was filed on September 8 but was not made public until October 7.
The work: On October 17, BWXT said that after being previously approved to work on pretransition activities, the DOE issued H2C a notice to proceed with the Hanford integrated tank disposition contract, effective October 21. Work under the 10-year contract includes operation of Hanford’s tank farm facilities and the eventual operation of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, among other responsibilities.
H2C will take over the contract currently held by Washington River Protection Solutions, which is owned by Amentum and Atkins, with Orano as an integrated subcontractor.
Background: H2C was first awarded the Hanford integrated tank disposition contract in April 2023. That contract, however, was invalidated by the Court of Federal Claims after being protested by HTDA, which argued that H2C was ineligible because the company allowed its registration in the federal government’s System of Award Management (SAM) for contracts to lapse. Both H2C and HTDA submitted revised proposals to the DOE and, after another assessment, the department once again awarded the contract H2C in February 2024.
HTDA then challenged the contract award a second time, arguing that the DOE acted improperly by allowing H2C to resubmit a proposal despite having failed to maintain its SAM registration.
In her opinion rejecting this latest protest by HTDA, Horn wrote that H2C’s history of registry in SAM does not preclude the DOE from evaluating its proposal. Horn noted that the DOE’s analysis of the proposals found that H2C’s offered a “clearly superior proposal,” even though the bid was 12 percent higher than that of HTDA.
Horn also claimed that, given the nature of the work, it was in the best interest of all parties to avoid further delays in beginning work under the new contract.
“In addition to being in the agency’s best interest to move forward with intervenor, it is in the public’s interest to have the agency avoid the delays associated with another competition toward a new award decision if the court issues an injunction, as the delays could also put at risk the agency’s ability to meet compliance agreement milestones, and slow down the progress of treating the waste,” Horn wrote.
Quote: In announcing the contract approval, Heatherly Dukes, president of BWXT Technical Services Group, said, “We are very excited to begin working with DOE on this incredibly important cleanup mission. H2C’s leadership team has been deployed and brings 170 years of combined experience in tank waste disposition and disciplined nuclear operations.”
