For the second straight year, AECOM-led Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) earned more than 90% of its fee for its performance as the radioactive tank waste manager at the U.S. Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
The WRPS scorecard was one of two issued this week for Hanford vendors. Wastren Advantage (now part of Veolia) separately took home 89% of its possible fee award for analysis and testing services at the 222-S Laboratory.
Washington River Protection Solutions received almost $38.7 million, or 94% of a potential $40 million during the 2019 fiscal year, according to its scorecard. The company took home just over $11 million of its potential $13 million subjective fee and $27.6 million of a potential $28 million in performance-based incentive.
Within nine subjective rating categories, the contractor scored one “excellent,” six “very good,” and two “good.” The excellent rating was for safety program implementation.
The vendor oversees 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste stored in 177 underground tanks at the former plutonium manufacturing complex.
Among other things, the Energy Department lauded WRPS for building an interim barrier on the SX Tank Farm five months ahead of the milestone set out in the Tri-Party Agreement on Hanford cleanup. The temporary barrier prevents rain and snowmelt from seeping into the underground tanks driving contaminants toward groundwater.
The vendor also worked with the Hanford Office of River Protection (ORP) to accelerate, by three months, implementation of recommendations from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board to improve safety in double-shell tank farms, according to the scorecard.
One area for improvement for WRPS is filing “error-free and complete preliminary safety analysis” paperwork that supports tank waste treatment projects, according to the scorecard.
A year ago, WRPS received 93% of its potential fee for fiscal 2018. The vendor has a $6.8 billion contract that began in October 2008. Two months ago, the company received a one-year extension through September 2020.
As part of its tank contract, WRPS manages Hanford’s 222-S Laboratory, where Veolia analyzes thousands of highly radioactive samples from Hanford’s waste storage tanks to gauge the radio-chemistry content.
For the period from Sept. 21, 2018, through Sept. 20, 2019, Veolia received $211,000 of a potential $237,000 fee award. That is down from the 96%, $184,000 of the more than $191,000, which it received in its previous DOE scorecard.
In the most recent scorecard, the firm claimed $118,000 of $142,000 in performance-based incentives and about $93,000 out of $95,000 for special emphasis areas.
Veolia, by virtue of its purchase of Wastren in January 2018, holds the $52 million lab testing contract that went into effect in September 2015 and was extended this fall to September 2020.
The Energy Department praised Veolia for simplifying analytical waste stream management at the point of generation. The agency also said “extensive external and internal assessments” revealed few program and operational weaknesses.
But an area for improvement is “quality in analytical reporting and data accuracy,” the agency said.
