Portage Inc. earned $1.1 million of its possible $1.5 million fiscal 2016 award fee as the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) contract. It received a “good” rating for the year, according to DOE’s latest evaluation, reflecting that grade in three performance areas: project management; tailings excavation, haul, and disposal; and health and safety.
The Idaho Falls, Idaho-based construction engineering company is excavating and hauling roughly 16 million tons of uranium mill tailings from a former uranium ore processing site in Moab, Utah, to an engineered disposal cell 30 miles away in Crescent Junction. Over half of that amount has already been transported.
The DOE report notes challenges facing Portage during the scorecard period from Oct. 1, 2015, to Sept. 30, 2016, including a reduced workforce and the waste transport schedule slipping from four to two trains each week.
Asked for details of these issues, a Portage spokeswoman said questions were forwarded to the Department of Energy, which did not respond to those or to a separate set of questions sent directly to agency headquarters.
Portage reportedly laid off 31 employees last April, leaving about 80 on the job. At the time, a spokesperson for a project subcontractor told the Moab Sun News that the rate of shipments was being halved so that workers could focus on expanding the disposal cell and other maintenance projects.
Portage dealt with funding issues via the reduced shipment rate and development of “an innovative roving crew concept,” the evaluation says. It did not elaborate on the how the roving crews functioned.
This happened even while funding for the cleanup project rose slightly from $37.9 million in fiscal 2015 to $38.6 million last year. However, DOE requested $3.9 million less for the current budget year given the shift in focus from waste transport to cell excavation. Government agencies, though, have to date in fiscal 2017 largely operated under continuing resolutions that have kept funding at prior-year levels. The latest short-term fix expires on April 28.
The reduction in waste shipments led DOE to revise the disposal target Portage was expected to hit to receive a “good” rating – from 873,000 tons to 604,506 tons. Portage reached 96 percent of the goal amount, according to the scorecard.
The company’s latest rating is down from the “very good” it received from DOE for fiscal 2015. For that year the company received $1.26 million, or 84 percent of the total possible fee.
Among the successes cited in the latest scorecard, DOE noted that Portage completed digging and building a new phase of the disposal cell early, on budget, and without any safety or environmental problems; finished enhancements to electrical systems; helped finish decontamination and coating of 100 intermodal shipping containers; and reported 28 of 36 health and safety incidents within two hours. The report notes, though, that one incident was not filed for at least 48 hours.
Portage in April 2016 secured a five-year, $153.8 million follow-on task order to its initial five-year contract. The company in January was acquired by rival North Wind Group.
