Staff Reports
WC Monitor
1/22/2016
Washington River Protection Solutions, the Hanford Site tank farm contractor, has received 88 percent of the award fee available for fiscal 2015, or just over $13.7 million out of $15.6 million. The fee is in addition to an award of 100 percent of the $14.4 million available as performance-based incentives for completing or making progress on 14 specific projects, ranging from upgrades to the 222-S Laboratory to work to prepare for retrieval of waste from double-shell Tank AY-102. The award fee payment, which is based on Department of Energy ratings of special emphasis areas, was judged as being at the top of the “very good” range. It was an improvement over the previous fiscal year’s rating, when WRPS was awarded 83 percent of the available award fee, or $10.5 million out of a possible $12.6 million. “We appreciate the Department of Energy’s recognition of our strong fiscal year 2015 performance in our mission to protect the public and environment by managing Hanford’s tank waste,” Mark Lindholm, WRPS president and project manager, said in a statement.
WRPS received its award fee based on individual ratings of “excellent” for two special emphasis areas, nuclear safety and the management of the single-shell and double-shell tank system, and ratings of “very good” on the other six areas considered. The one-page scorecard made public by DOE did not include percentages of the fee earned for individual categories. However, management of the tank system was worth a maximum of $2.7 million and nuclear safety was worth a maximum of $1.2 million. The largest fee, $4.5 million, was available for cost performance, for which WRPS was rated “very good.”
“WRPS exceeded many of the significant award fee criteria and has met overall cost, schedule and technical performance requirement of the contract in the aggregate,” DOE said on the scorecard. It praised WRPS for its leadership on three projects. WRPS took over management of the Effluent Treatment Facility and its related wastewater facilities, which had previously been managed by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation. They were transferred from Hanford’s Richland Operations Office to the Office of River Protection because they will be needed to support the site’s waste treatment plan and will be used to support tank farm work in the meantime. DOE also praised WRPS for its leadership in implementing the Independent Tank Vapor Team recommendations to better protect workers from chemical vapors and for improving One System integration of the work among Office of River Protection contractors and national laboratories, including the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. PNNL has been conducting research for waste vitrification, which will be used to dispose of the material held in the tank farms.
DOE identified key areas for improvement including “challenges with work integration, command and control of nuclear operations, and ongoing equipment failures,” according to the scorecard. All were ongoing issues identified before the start of fiscal 2015. By operations control issues, DOE apparently was referencing lockout/tag-out issues related to safe practices for work involving systems or equipment using electricity, although there were no incidents in which workers were injured in fiscal 2015. WRPS also has had ongoing issues with the performance of equipment in the underground tanks. Custom-made equipment has to endure heavy use in an environment that includes chemical corrosion, high heat, and radiation. A slurry distributor had to be replaced in fiscal 2015. There also were performance problems with the Mobile Arm Retrieval System, or MARS, used to remove waste from the tanks. A year ago work had stopped with the system using a vacuum attachment because waste retrieval was progressing so slowly. Work restarted but has stopped again after hoses failed following heavy use. “Moving forward we are actively addressing our opportunities for improvement, as well as vapors issues and equipment reliability,” Lindholm said. “We’re committed to improving our performance in fiscal 2016.” He pointed to progress made by WRPS in fiscal 2015, including completing retrieval work on Tank C-102, the 14th single-shell tank in C Farm to be emptied to regulatory standards. The 242-A Evaporator facility was restarted after four years of upgrades and it reduced the quantity of liquid waste in double-shell tanks by nearly 2 million gallons during four operating campaigns. The amount is equivalent to about two of Hanford’s 27 usable double-shell tanks. WRPS also completed the conceptual design of the Low-Activity Waste Pretreatment Plant, which is proposed to pretreat low-activity waste outside the vitrification plant. It could then be treated at the vitrification plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility before the vit plant’s Pretreatment Facility has technical issues resolved and is operating.
