Post FY15 Hijinx at the Idaho Cleanup Project: Four Contracts?

Rumors had been that the Department of Energy would combine contracts for both the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project and the Idaho Cleanup Project into one contract.

Today, however, DOE announced the work currently being done under two contracts will, through 2020 (and in one case, 2024) be done in no fewer than four contracts.

Still scratching my head over the whole deal.

DOE’s announcement is here.

At the core, it means work will continue in some sort on the cleanup side of the Idaho National Laboratory into the mid 2020s. But on the surface, I’m still trying to figure out what it all means.

At a glance, it appears that the ICP Core contract is the one that most closely mirrors the work I’ve been doing at the Site for the past eight years, with the addition of AMWTP work under this contract (the contract consolidation that was rumored):

The ICP-Core post FY15 EM mission work encompasses ongoing Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) and ICP work scopes that must continue into the future: stabilizing and dispositioning spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste; dispositioning transuranic waste; retrieving targeted buried waste; closing the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC) tank farm; maintaining CERCLA remedial actions; miscellaneous D&D work incidental to ICP-Core scope; and operating and maintaining the INTEC and RWMC facility infrastructure.

The other three contracts are a bit of a noodle-scratcher. Calcine Disposition and Spent Fuel will be in one contract, with NRC-Licensed facilities under another, with D&D and construction of ARP 9 under a third contract. Having ARP 9 built on a small business contract isn’t that much of a surprise, as past ARPs have been done in the same manner. But seeing the D&D work fall into a different contract than the core work is something new, as is dividing out the other cleanup work being done principally at INTEC (with a little at TAN).

It’ll be interesting to see which contracts ICP’s current contractor will go after. I expect exciting, yet unsettled times in the year ahead. I feel confident, however, there’ll still be a job for me once the contractual dust settles.