The Department of Energy has “serious concerns” over the lack of corrective actions its contractor is taking to prepare the multi-million-dollar Salt Waste Processing Facility for startup at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.
Specifically, the federal agency noted that Parsons has not properly addressed radiation and fire protection at the facility in the company’s operational readiness review. Specifics on what Parsons was missing were not provided. However, the company says those concerns, in the form of recommendations from DOE, are a normal part of preparing a large-scale facility for operational readiness.
Furthermore, Frank Sheppard, Parsons senior vice president and project manager at the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), said in an emailed statement this week that the facility will still start up as scheduled.
“Parsons will deliver an operational Salt Waste Processing Facility to the Department of Energy in the first quarter of 2020, consistent with all previous obligations and negotiations,” Sheppard wrote.
The Salt Waste Processing Facility is designed to treat millions of gallons of radioactive salt waste currently stored in underground, Cold War-era tanks at the 310-square-mile Savannah River Site. Parsons built the facility, and will operate it for one year, under a contract issued nearly two decades ago and worth about $2.3 billion. Construction of the facility cost roughly $470 million and was completed in June 2016.
DOE recently issued a final report on Parsons’ operational readiness review, which the company submitted to the agency Nov. 22. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) cited that company document in its Dec. 6 weekly report for Savannah River.
An operational readiness review is essentially a checklist of safety and operational requirements that must be met before a facility is deemed ready for startup. DOE’s report on the review arrived after officials from the agency and the DNFSB spent two weeks reviewing the salt waste facility. Inquiries to obtain the contractor operational readiness review, and the DOE report on the review, were not returned.
According to DNFSB’s Dec. 6 report, DOE had “several dozen additional negative observations,” about Parsons’ operational readiness review. The company is now working with DOE to address the government’s concerns. Once the parties are satisfied, DOE will conduct its own, agency-led operational readiness review for SWPF.
In its final report about the contractor review, DOE said Parsons still needed to meet three of the 21 SWPF readiness objectives: fire protection, radiation protection, and work planning and control. Each objective is graded as met, partially met, or not met, based on how well the contractor implemented the task.
Parsons has taken corrective actions on DOE’s checklist, but the DNFSB report said those actions were “narrowly focused,” meaning that, in the board’s opinion, they don’t address all the issues DOE raised. “DOE management has expressed serious concerns with [the company’s actions] and plans to issue direction to Parsons imminently,” according to the DNFSB.
Requests to obtain a list of these corrective actions from DOE and Parsons were also unsuccessful.
“Parsons is actively addressing additional actions requested by the Department in advance of the DOE operational readiness review and looks forward to bringing SWPF into operation to support the vital cleanup mission of the Savannah River Site,” Sheppard wrote in an emailed statement.
The Savannah River Site stores about 35 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste. About 90 percent of that volume, or 31.5 million gallons, is salt waste. The rest is sludge. The SWPF is intended to process at least 7.3 million gallons of liquid salt waste per year, removing its cesium and transferring that material to the nearby Defense Waste Processing Facility for further processing with the sludge.
Parsons was hired in 2002 to design and build the 140,000-square-foot Salt Waste Processing Facility, and to oversee the first year of operations. Construction was completed in June 2016, with a goal of beginning operations in December 2018. However, startup got pushed back to the first quarter of 2020, due to the need for valve replacements and other technical issues.
Over the past two years, DOE and Parson have been at odds about the contractor’s performance at SWPF. In March 2018, the agency accused Parsons of a “deteriorating” work performance, including workers failing to adequately follow safety protocols. Parsons, in response, said DOE had mischaracterized the company’s performance. The parties eventually agreed Parsons would submit an updated baseline that includes costs and schedules for SWPF startup. That schedule has been approved, but details of the baseline have not been made public.
Then, in March of this year, DOE told Parsons it would have to pay $33 million in disincentive fees due to missed deadlines and overspending at SWPF. The contractor fought back, saying it had to postpone various milestones due to unforeseen equipment issues that DOE was not considering.
