Two companies protest contractor chosen to run WIPP

Aug. 10—Two companies have filed protests with the Government Accountability Office over the U.S. Energy Department awarding a $3 billion contract to a Bechtel subsidiary to take over operations of an underground nuclear waste site in October.

The companies lost out to Tularosa Basin Range Services in the bid to operate the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.

National Tru Solutions and Carlsbad Operations Alliance LLC recently filed the protests over Tularosa Basin receiving the four-year contract with six one-year extensions.

The main task at WIPP is overseeing disposal of transuranic waste — made up mostly of irradiated gloves, clothing, equipment, soil and other items — in salt caverns some 2,150 feet underground. This waste comes from Los Alamos National Laboratory and out-of-state sources, such as the Hanford Site in Washington state and Idaho National Laboratory.

Tularosa Basin, which lists its parent company as Chicago-based Bechtel National Inc., had a proposal "determined to be the best value to the government," the Energy Department said in an earlier statement.

The protests are almost certain to delay the changeover because GAO can take up to 100 days to make a decision, which would push the disputes into November. Nuclear Waste Partnership would continue to operate the facility until the challenges are resolved.

The issue is tightening the lips of all concerned.

Neither WIPP nor Energy Department officials would say whether Nuclear Waste Partnership was one of the bidders. However, Engineering News-Record, an industry trade publication, reported the partnership, which has run the facility for about a decade, did not submit a bid.

Huntington Ingalls Industries, the majority partner in Tru Solutions, and Westinghouse, a key partner in Carlsbad Solutions, declined to comment.

GAO attorney Kenneth Patton confirmed these unsuccessful bidders had filed protests with his agency.

The protests fall under protective orders that prevent him from discussing the companies or the reasons behind the actions, Patton wrote in an email.

Nuclear Waste Partnership has struggled with cost overruns and delays with installing a new ventilation system and an accompanying utility shaft. The system's cost have ballooned from the original $288 million estimate to $486 million.

WIPP officials have said the new ventilation system is needed because the old one was partially blocked to contain a 2014 radioactive release that occurred after a waste drum burst. The contaminated facility was shut down for three years and cost $2 billion to clean up.

However, Energy Department spokeswoman Darlene Prather wrote in an email the agency put the position up for bid as a routine procedure. She gave no indication that officials were displeased with the current contractor.

"The contract with NWP was scheduled to expire ... and DOE conducted a contract competition as a normal course of business in advance of the scheduled expiration date," Prather wrote, adding the agency couldn't comment beyond that.

The two disgruntled bidders aren't the only ones irked about who won the contract.

Watchdog groups have criticized the Energy Department for choosing a subsidiary of Bechtel, a former partner in the consortium Los Alamos National Security LLC, which improperly packaged the waste drum that exploded at WIPP.

WIPP itself has come under fire as it pushes to add new storage chambers and establish a more open-ended operation that will receive new and old waste until at least the 2080s.

Critics contend this carries WIPP far beyond its original purpose of taking legacy waste until 2024.