A top official with the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management declined Wednesday to specify when a new subcontractor might be selected to finish building a new underground ventilation system for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
“It is certainly a high-priority for us,” Todd Shrader, DOE’s principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management, said during the Exchange Monitor’s virtual RadWaste Summit.
The Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) is designed to increase underground airflow to more than 500,000 cubic feet per minute from the current level of 175,000 cubic feet per minute. Improved airflow is needed to dissolve danger gases underground at increased workforce levels.
The project is a big deal for WIPP because it is intended to provide ample ventilation for simultaneous waste emplacement, salt mining, and maintenance for the next 30 years, Shrader said.
Nuclear Waste Partnership, the Amentum-led prime that manages WIPP, terminated a $135 million subcontract for construction of a new ventilation system issued in 2018 to Critical Applications Alliance (CAA).
The DOE and its prime contractor were disappointed with the slow pace of progress by the joint venture of Houston-based Christensen Building Group and Kilgore Industries, Nuclear Waste Partnership Chief of Staff Kevin Donovan said during a prerecorded session for the conference.
The Energy Department hoped the project would be finished in 2021. Nuclear Waste Partnership now expects the ventilation system operating no sooner than November 2023, and it will probably be later once the timeline is re-examined.
A Tuesday article in the Carlsbad Current-Argus quoted a CAA representative as saying a multitude of engineering changes made by DOE were largely to blame for the schedule delay.
