March 17, 2014

BECHTEL DEFENDS DESIGN WORK AT HANFORD WASTE TREATMENT PLANT

By ExchangeMonitor

Bechtel National is pushing back against recent allegations by a Department of Energy official at Hanford that the company is providing poor design work at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant. Late last week, Gary Brunson, director of the WTP Engineering Division at the DOE Office of River Protection, issued a memorandum to top ORP officials outlining what he described as more than 30 instances where Bechtel National had provided design solutions and technical advice that was flawed, did not comply with the project’s safety basis or led to increasing completion costs and schedules, among other criticisms. In an interview with WC Monitor yesterday, though, Bechtel National Project Manager Frank Russo defended the WTP design, saying that the issues raised by Brunson had already been worked through between DOE and his organization. “I think the issues that Gary Brunson brings up are all long-known issues. None of these are new,” Russo said. “Every one of the items in his memo have been transparently discussed and adjudicated by the Department of Energy and Bechtel, and validated by independent experts.”

Russo also said, “When you look at the body of people who have come in and transparently looked at, if not all, the preponderance of the things in his letter …. they look at these things and say, ‘Is it perfect? No. But will it ever be perfect? No, probably not until it’s in operation for many years. But is it safer than the tanks and will it perform the mission at no risk to the co-located worker and the public?’ Their answer, as well as ours, is yes.” He added, “We’re not claiming it’s perfect. We’re claiming it’s safe, it will do the mission and it will protect the co-located worker and the public. You cannot say that about the [Hanford waste] tanks.”

Warning in his memo that “the behavior and performance of Bechtel Engineering places unnecessarily high risk that WTP design will not be effectively completed,” Brunson called on DOE to immediately strip Bechtel National of its role as the design authority for the project. While saying such a move is at the discretion of DOE, Russo also noted, “What I will tell you from a point of view of what adds complexity to any project and takes away from complexity, the more interfaces you have, the more you have different entities that have to be adjudicated. It’s not going to change anything. It’ll just simply put another body in the process. And my question is, go look at all the various independent reviews … do you need another body? If the answer is yes, that’s the Department’s decision and they’ll make it. I don’t think it’ll help the project, but it is the Department’s decision.”

Russo said he is concerned that Brunson’s allegations could damage wider support for the massive WTP project. “At the end of the day, what I think it does is it creates confusion and it creates opportunity for Congress to not support the project, and that is something we really worry about because those tanks, they’ve got issues,” Russo said. “If we lose public support, that’s obviously not something we want to lose, especially the folks in the Tri-Cities. I’ll point out to you that everyone who works on this project in the design area, with very few exceptions, are residents of this community and most will stay, so they have a vested interest. We don’t want to lose their support,” he said. Russo added, “In trying to strive for an environment where we can have continual conversations and healthy conversations, certainly Gary Brunson’s letter provides an opportunity for another healthy discussion. It does raise the specter of how long will Congress particularly, and the Department, want to continue those discussions and not lose confidence in funding this job. I think those two things are what keep me up at night.”

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