NUKE NEWS

4 Hanford contractors awarded $77M in incentive pay. Veteran company does the best

Annette Cary
Tue, March 1, 2022, 

The Department of Energy has awarded $77 million in incentive pay to four contractors for their work at the Hanford nuclear reservation in fiscal 2021.

Three of the contractors were new that year, and none of them earned as high a percentage of pay as their predecessors. They also did not do as well as the fourth contractor, a veteran at the site.

Washington River Protection Solutions, which has held the Hanford site’s tank farm contract since 2008, earned 94% of its available incentive pay, or fee as it is called by DOE.

The company, which is owned by Amentum and Atkins, will be awarded nearly $42 million for its work at Hanford in fiscal 2021.

It’s rating was slightly down from last year, when it earned 95% of available pay, but was well above the performance of the other contractor ratings announced on Monday.

Hanford Mission Integration Solutions earned 87% of its available pay; Central Plateau Cleanup Co. earned 79% of its available pay; and Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration earned 75% of its available pay.

Environmental cleanup is underway at the 580-square-mile Hanford nuclear reservation. The underground radioactive waste storage tanks and the vitrification plant are in the center of the site.

Rather than releasing the complete review, DOE in recent years has made public a scorecard that lists the fee earned and a brief recap of work that was done well and also areas needing improvement.

Not included in the fee awards announced Monday is Bechtel National, which is building and starting up the $17 billion Hanford vitrification plant. It is on a calendar-year review and fee schedule.

The Hanford site adjacent to Richland in Eastern Washington was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce about two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Now about $2.5 billion a year is spent on cleanup of radioactive and other hazardous chemical waste and contamination at the site.
Washington River Protection Solutions

“Our team safely and consistently overcame challenges related to weather, supply chain and COVID-19 to deliver results,” said John Eschenberg, chief executive of Washington River Protection Solutions.

The tank farm contractor is responsible for 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in underground tanks, some of them prone to leaking. It also is preparing to feed pretreated waste to the nearby vitrification plant to be turned into a stable glass form for disposal starting by the end of 2023.

Washington River Protection Solutions crews excavate trenches to install electrical wiring and other equipment to support future tank waste retrieval operations. A mini conveyor increases efficiency.

In a major win for the contractor, it got enough work done on the the Tank Side Cesium Removal System, or TSCR, last year to begin pretreating Hanford tank waste last month for eventual delivery to the vitrification plant.

It is the first industrial-scale processing of radioactive tank waste to prepare it for disposal in the 78-year history of the site.

DOE also praised the contractor for retrieving as much was as possible with two technologies from underground Tank AZ-104 and retrieving 77% of the waste in another single-shell tank by the end of fiscal 2021.

The tank farm contractor also completed several construction projects, including installing piping to connect the tank farms to the vitrification plant; replacing the cover on a basin holding liquid waste; and installing a barrier over a tank farm to prevent precipitation and snow melt from driving radioactive contamination already in the soil deeper toward groundwater.

Areas needing improvement included promptly submitting complete notices of construction permit applications to DOE and its regulators and its oversight of a program to insure quality in purchases.
Central Plateau Cleanup Co.

CPCCo was awarded $21 million of available incentive pay for its work as the new cleanup contractor for central Hanford for the eight months it held the contract in fiscal 2021.

It is owned by Amentum, Fluor and Atkins.

Central Plateau Cleanup Co. crews enter the Hanford 324 Building airlock to do radiological surveying and other tasks. They are preparing to dig up of highly contaminated soil beneath the building.

The 79% of available fee it earned compared to 85% of the fee earned by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., its predecessor, in its last full year of work before its contract expired.

“I am especially proud that the department recognized CPCCo’s strong performance despite the challenges inherent in contract transition during the middle of the COVID pandemic while transforming many of our core business practices,” said Scott Sax, contractor president, in a message to employees.

CPCCo has an incentive program that awards employees when the company meets DOE objectives, and workers will receive their share of incentive pay in a March paycheck, he said.

DOE praised CPCCo for completing demolition of the last of the Plutonium Finishing Plant’s highly contaminated Plutonium Reclamation Facility.

It also treated more than 1.7 billion gallons of contaminated groundwater.

DOE said the contractor consistently delivered required reports early and that it maintained excellent safety performance.

Areas needing improvement were in administration, including quickly reporting adverse events to authorities at DOE and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

It also needs to have its accounting, estimating, purchasing and property administrative functions approved to reduce what DOE called “significant” federal oversight.

The contractor earned all but about $370,000 for completing required work, but only about half of the $10.6 million available through a subjective evaluation.
Hanford Mission Integration Solutions

The sitewide services contractor for Hanford earned $14 million for its first eight months of work at Hanford.

Hanford Mission Integration Solutions is comprised of Leidos Integrated Technology, Centerra Group and Parsons Government Services and provides services such as information technology, firefighting, security, utilities, road maintenance, management of the HAMMER training center and preservation of cultural artifacts.

Bryan Hurt, a field support worker with Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, installs cables and antennas on the Hanford site’s 405-foot meteorological tower.

The previous contractor, Mission Support Alliance, received 93% of pay possible during fiscal 2020, compared to the 87% earned by the new contractor.

“With major contract transitions, including our own, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and more, HMIS found much success in 2021,” said Bob Wilkinson, contractor president, in a message to employees.

DOE said the new contractor managed electric, water and sewer utilities and roads for maximum reliability and completed planning for improving the secure entrances to the Hanford site.

Most performance targets for services, such as cybersecurity and water pressure, were met.

The exception was fire systems maintenance, according to DOE.

The contractor earned all but $290,000 for completing specific work in its contract, but lost $1.8 million in possible fee for its scores in its subjective evaluation by DOE.
Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration

The contractor for the 222-S Laboratory, Hanford Laboratory Management and Integration, earned about $977,000 in incentive pay in its first four months of work, or 75% of pay available.

That compares to previous contractor Wastren Advantage, also known as VNS Federal Services, which earned 93% of available pay in the previous fiscal year.

The 222-S laboratory at Hanford

DOE said the new contractor improved turnaround times for industrial hygiene sampling by 60% and it solved performance issues in testing for failed metal analyses to reestablish the laboratory’s accreditation in that area.

Areas needing improvement included meeting due dates for contract requirements, more quickly communicating potential issues to DOE and the quality of its invoices, overtime requests and contract proposals submitted to DOE.

The contracting company was formed by Navarro Research and Engineering and Advanced Technologies and Laboratories International.