$868 million contract up for grabs at Hanford nuclear reservation | Tri-City Herald

The Department of Energy has opened bidding for a contractor for the Hanford 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford nuclear reservation.

Bidding is restricted to small businesses. Bids on the new contract are due April 9.

The estimated value of the contract is about $868 million over seven years, including two 12-month extension options.

The current 222-S Laboratory contract, held by Wastren Advantage, expires on Sept. 20. Wastren is also known as VNS Federal Services, a subsidiary of Veolia Nuclear Solutions.

The new contractor will be responsible for maintenance and upgrades of the lab facilities and for analyses done there.

It is a change from the current contracting system with the tank farm contractor acting as the landlord of the facilities and performing maintenance.

The Hanford Site’s 222-S laboratory handles highly radioactive samples to conduct 15,000 to 25,000 radiochemistry and other analyses annually.

It has 11 hot cells, where workers operate handling equipment from outside the cells and look through thick, leaded glass to work with radioactive waste samples within the hot cell.

Information now is used to determine what wastes can be combined in Hanford’s underground storage tanks and to help plan how workers can best be protected while working at specific tanks.

In the future it will be used to support the Hanford vitrification plant, which could begin treating tank waste for disposal as soon as 2022.

DOE issued its request for proposals for the new contract on Thursday.