By George Lobsenz
In an unusually harmonious end to a scorched-earth battle over a $3 billion Energy Department contract, the consortium that won the “mission support” contract at DoE’s Hanford site has agreed to hire the losing bidder, precluding any possibility that the loser might protest–for the second time–DoE’s selection of its rival.
A spokesman for Lockheed Martin [LMT], one of three leaders of the winning consortium, Mission Support Alliance LLC, confirmed yesterday that Computer Sciences Corp. [CSC], which led the losing consortium along with Battelle–had been hired to serve as a major contractor on the Hanford contract.
The decision is unusual because CSC last year derailed an initial DoE decision to award the Hanford contract to the Mission Support Alliance, which is led by Lockheed Martin, Jacobs Engineering and Wackenhut. CSC filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), alleging flaws in DoE’s procurement process; GAO dismissed the protest, but only after DoE indicated it would take corrective action on the procurement, including a re-evaluation of the relative costs of the competing bids.
DoE last month chose the Lockheed Martin-Jacobs-Wackenhut team again, but–as has become the department’s custom on major procurements in recent years–released virtually no details about the reasons for its selection.
There had been speculation that CSC might challenge the award again, further delaying cleanup work at the highly contaminated Hanford site in eastern Washington. However, those concerns melted away with when news of CSC’s addition to the winning consortium trickled out.
Joe Wagovich, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Services, said Computer Sciences brought “many strengths” to the Mission Support Alliance, but that it had not been decided yet what specific responsibilities the new subcontractor would have.
As to why CSC had been brought into the contract, he said: “We feel it is time to get moving–taking this action will bring stability” to the Hanford site.
Wagovich also said DoE had provided written approval of the addition of CSC.
DoE on Tuesday issued a “notice to proceed” to the Mission Support Alliance, allowing them to begin work at the site.
The consortium will support the operations of several cleanup contractors at the site by providing safety, security and environmental services; site infrastructure and utilities maintenance; financial and business management services; and information resources and data management.
The mission support deal is the last of three new contracts recently handed out by the department in a major restructuring of its programs at Hanford. The other two contracts were for management and clean-out of high-level waste storage tanks at the site and for soil and groundwater cleanup and decommissioning of old nuclear weapons production facilities.