September 25, 2020

Hanford Tank Prime Gets Potential 1-Year Extension from DOE

By Wayne Barber

The Department of Energy is extending its contract with the current tank manager at the Hanford Site in Washington state, Washington River Protection Solutions, through Sept. 30, 2021.

The one-year extension was announced in a Thursday press release by the DOE Office of Environmental Management. The Amentum-Atkins partnership’s current $7.8-billion agreement that began in October 2008 would otherwise expire at the end of this month.

The extension is envisioned as a maximum of one year and could be shorter if DOE gets a new contractor in place before then.

The department’s press release did not provide an estimated value for the one-year extension. A prior one-year extension was valued at about $630-million. 

This extension comes after the July disclosure that DOE plans “corrective action” on its $13-billion long-term tank closure contract awarded in May to the BWX Technologies-led Hanford Works Restoration group. Fluor is a minority partner on the team, which also includes the smaller firms Intera and DBD.

An attorney with the department’s general counsel office said in a letter to the Government Accountability Office to expect the Office of Environmental Management to re-evaluate the award to Hanford Works Restoration.

The DOE seemed to hint at a possible do-over for the follow-on tank farm contract after two rival bidder groups filed protests with the Government Accountability Office. One of the groups compromises incumbent teammates Atkins, Amentum, plus Westinghouse. 

The other losing team that protested the award consists of Jacobs, Honeywell, and Perma-Fix Environmental Services. 

With the outcome of the contract award now uncertain, BWXT said in an August earnings call it is not counting on any income from the tank agreement this year.

Washington River Protection Solutions is responsible for management of 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous wastes left over from Cold War plutonium production. The material is stored in Hanford’s underground storage tanks and awaiting delivery to the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant for vitrification.

The DOE has dubbed the next agreement a tank closure contract, putting the emphasis on retirement of the aging underground tanks. The Waste Treatment Plant is supposed to begin immobilizing the tanks’ low-activity radioactive waste, a type containing a relatively small amount of radionuclides, in a solid, glass-like substance by the end of 2023, according to a court order. That same vitrification process for high-activity waste, a byproduct of reactions that occurred inside nuclear reactors used for weapons-plutonium production, is not slated to start until about a decade after that.

The Waste Treatment Plant expected to vitrify perhaps half of the tank waste at Hanford before it is retired. 

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