Virginia security firm selected to protect former NV. Nuclear site
LAS VEGAS NV June 3 2017 A subsidiary of a Virginia defense contractor has been awarded a contract paying up to $203 million over five years to guard a vast former nuclear proving ground outside Las Vegas, a spokesman for the agency overseeing the Nevada National Security Site said Thursday.
The announcement that SOC LLC will take over security at the former Nevada Test Site comes after Mission Support and Test Services was awarded a $5 billion contract May 12 to manage and operate the 1,360-square-mile federal reservation and its related Nevada Field Office in North Las Vegas.
Mission Support and Test Services, based in Kansas, is a division of New Jersey-based Honeywell.
U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Darwin Morgan said the 10-year management contract still needs to clear a challenge period.
National Security Technologies LLC has operated the test site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas for more than a decade.
SOC is a subsidiary of Day & Zimmerman of Chantilly, Virginia. It is partnering in the security contract with Protection Strategies Inc. and MCH Corp. of Tennessee, and Longenecker & Associates of Las Vegas, according to a statement about the contract.
The takeover date is July 31, replacing Centerra Group of Florida, the parent company of longtime security site security provider Wackenhut Services.
As the Nevada Test Site, the area hosted more than 1,000 nuclear detonations from 1951 to 1992. It now hosts non-nuclear experiments and safety training related to the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
The National Nuclear Security Administration last September rescinded a $5 billion site management contract awarded to a firm that had been a subsidiary of defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp., just days after it had been announced.
Officials said the move came after they learned Nevada Site Science Support and Technologies Corp. had been sold by Lockheed Martin to another company.
AP
