The Department of Energy’s new plan to pursue additional testing to resolve lingering technical issues at two of the main facilities at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant is not likely to lead to additional layoffs at the project, as long as a funding level of $690 million per year is maintained in Fiscal Years 2013 and 2014, according to WTP contractor Bechtel National. In a message to WTP workers late last week, Bechtel National Project Manager Frank Russo offered his first comments on DOE’s decision to delay the development of a new comprehensive cost-and-schedule baseline for the WTP while technical issues are resolved. “DOE has directed WTP to discontinue current rebaseline and contract proposal efforts associated with PT, HLW, and Shared Services, and instead to focus such efforts on work scope through FY 2014. DOE also has directed a continued focus on resolution of technical issues,” Russo said in the brief message. “WTP needs to be reliable and have appropriate controls so that it can be operated throughout the mission life. As a result, significant activities on PT and HLW facilities will be focused on validation of reliability, which includes testing, foundational process reviews, comprehensive system reviews, quality documentation reviews and issue resolution.” Russo added, “We will be communicating to you in a future message how our staff will accomplish these activities. Assuming the funding for FY2013 and 2014 remains at the congressionally supported $690 million level, previous announcements on our workforce levels are still valid.”