Nevada site contract saga ends, winner Honeywell JV to move forward
By
Ross Wilkers
A year-long battle over the Nevada National Security Site contract ends and a Honeywell-led joint venture will move to take over operations and maintenance of the facility.
The National Nuclear Security Administration is transitioning the operations and management of its Nevada National Security Site to a new contractor after a year-long protest battle over the $5 billion award.
A Honeywell-led joint venture with partners Jacobs Engineering Group and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ SN3 subsidiary will start the transition Aug. 1 as the current Nevada site operations contract expires Sept. 30. The Nevada site is located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas and is home to science programs that focus on safety, effectiveness and reliability of the U.S.' nuclear weapons.
The new contract awarded to the Mission Support and Test Services venture in May is worth up to $5 billion over 10 years. A consortium led by Northrop Grumman is the incumbent and includes partners AECOM, CH2M and BWX Technologies.
HII announced the “notice to proceed” from NNSA Monday, nearly two weeks after the last remaining outstanding protest to the Government Accountability Office against the award was withdrawn.
This development concludes a long saga that initially began in August 2016 when Leidos’ Nevada Site Science Support and Technologies Corp. initially beat out four other bidders that included the Honeywell consortium and another joint venture led by Northrop to win the new contract.
NNSA rescinded the award two months later and claimed the NV3ST subsidiary did not include in its proposal that it would transition to Leidos from Lockheed Martin’s IT and government services business as part of their mid-2016 merger.
NV3ST protested in October with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the agency subsequently let all bidders revise proposals to compete for the contract again, according to court documents.
Both the NV3ST and Northrop-led venture filed separate protests to GAO in late May and early June, respectively. NV3ST withdrew its protest July 7 and the Northrop-led Nuclear Security & Technology LLC ended its challenge on July 11.
Nuclear Security & Technology included AECOM and CH2M, while BWX was not a member.