KENNEWICK — A federal judge has ordered the Department of Energy to reconsider bids from both a company that it previously awarded a $45 billion contract and also the losing bidder on the work at the Hanford nuclear reservation site.
U.S. Judge Marian Blank Horn ordered the contract to be set aside and no work on the contract to be done, in a ruling June 12 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
However, the order was sealed then and only made publicly available on Friday, revealing the details of her ruling.
The judge found that Hanford Tank Operations and Closure, called H2C, was ineligible for the contract it was awarded in April.
H2C is a joint venture of BWXT Technical Services Group, Amentum Environment & Energy and Fluor Federal Services.
The losing bidder, Hanford Tank Disposition Alliance, or HTDA, filed a lawsuit against DOE, that raised several issues.
But the single deciding factor called out by the judge in her ruling was the argument that H2C had not met a mandatory requirement in the bidding process.
It had let its registration to bid on large federal projects lapse, according to the court order.
HTDA also had a problem with its registration in the System for Award Management, according to H2C.
H2C had countered that its competitor, HTDA, might also not be correctly registered for a federal bid.
It had changed its registration to show it was a U.S. company owned by Atkins Nuclear Secured when in fact it was owned by SNC Lavalin Group of Canada. Atkins was joined in the bid by Jacobs Technology and Westinghouse Government Services.
The Department of Justice asked the judge to return the issue to DOE “to take action that it deems necessary to address the issues raised in this case and any other issue relevant to the subject of the challenged procurement.”
Both bidders “at the very least raise significant issues that the agency should address,” the Department of Justice said.
DOE has made no announcement in how it plans to proceed to comply with the judge’s ruling.
But if either of the original two bidders disagree with how DOE reconsiders the contract award or want to challenge a subsequent award, the judge will consider their concerns, she said in her ruling.
The new contract for 10 years, with some work possibly extending up to 15 years, covers operation of the Hanford tank farms.
They hold 56 million gallons of radioactive waste from past production of nearly two-thirds of the plutonium produced for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War in Eastern Washington.
The company that is awarded the bid also will be the first operating contractor for the Hanford vitrification plant, under construction for 21 years at the site near Richland.
It is preparing to start turning some of the least radioactive tank waste into a stable glass form for permanent disposal.
