HANFORD’S WASTE SAMPLING AND CHARACTERIZATION FACILITY TO CLOSE

The Department of Energy announced late yesterday its intent to close Hanford’s Waste Sampling and Characterization Facility within a year and to remove sample analysis from Mission Support Alliance’s current scope of work. The move is expected to save approximately $12 million annually once WCSF is placed in “a low-cost surveillance and maintenance mode,” Matt McCormick, head of the DOE Richland Operations Office, said in a message to employees. The WSCF, managed by RJ Lee under a subcontract with MSA, is used to analyze samples from Hanford cleanup and surveillance-and-maintenance activities. DOE has decided to close the lab because off-site facilities are now available that can perform the work more cost-effectively, McCormick said. “Over the past 20 years, the capacity and turnaround time of offsite laboratories, as well as the reliability of the shipping industry, have improved to the point that offsite laboratories are the most cost-effective option for analyzing Hanford Site samples,” he said, noting, “This approach has been implemented successfully by Washington Closure Hanford LLC and by contractors at other DOE cleanup sites.”