Startup of the Savannah River Site’s $2.3 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) has been pushed back to the first quarter of next year, following initial efforts to begin operations in December 2018 and a more recent target of December 2019.
Meanwhile, Parsons said it has received an undisclosed amount of back pay owed by the Department of Energy for the company’s work on the facility. That resolves a dispute from this year in which the federal agency told the contractor it might have to fork over $33 million in disincentive fees.
Parsons was hired in 2002 to design, build, and oversee the first year of operations for the facility. Company spokesperson Bryce McDevitt did not give a specific reason for the latest schedule slip. Instead, he detailed the work left to be done before operations can begin.
The SWPF Operational Readiness Review should be completed by January, according to McDevitt. The review includes a checklist of standards necessary to ready a project or facility to start operations. They include ensuring the site successfully accepts the waste, checking its processing efficiency, and ensuring there is sufficient shielding to prevent high levels of radiation from being emitted into the environment.
The review will allow the SWPF to be safely tied into the rest of the liquid waste system at the DOE facility in South Carolina. Savannah River then can “begin introduction of radioactive waste into SWPF in early 2020,” McDevitt said by email.
In addition to the review, the company announced Monday that it had completed the SWPF Design Capacity Performance Test on Sept. 30. The test served as the plant’s most realistic dry run, using simulated radiological chemicals and mock controls to demonstrate operations. The test was successful, giving Parsons confidence that the facility can process 7.3 million gallons of salt waste each year.
The 140,000-square-foot Salt Waste Processing Facility will remove cesium from the millions of gallons of radioactive salt waste currently stored in more than 40 underground, Cold War-era tanks at the 310-square-mile site near Aiken, S.C. The complex houses about 35 million gallons of liquid waste; roughly 90 percent of that by volume is salt waste and the rest is sludge waste.
Once the cesium is separated from the salt waste, it will go to a nearby facility for treatment with the sludge waste and temporary storage on-site as the federal government works to find a permanent repository for its high-level defense waste. The treated salt waste will be permanently stored on-site.
The plant is expected to operate for 10 to 15 years. It will be a larger-scale version of a pilot program that site liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) operated for more than a decade. From 2007 to August of this year, the cesium removal pilot processed 7.4 million gallons of salt waste, which has translated to 1,827 canisters of treated waste.
When Parsons completed building the SWPF in June 2016, the company and Energy Department believed it would begin operations in December 2018. But equipment issues derailed that timeline, pushing the schedule back one year. Those issues included a malfunctioning valve controller last year that required Parsons to replace 460 valves used to control a wide array of functions at SWPF.
In addition to equipment issues at the salt waste facility, DOE and Parsons have repeatedly fought over the contractor’s work performance. Most recently, in March of this year, the Energy Department told said Parsons would have to pay $33 million in disincentive fees due to missed deadlines and overspending at SWPF. The contractor fought back, stating it had to push postpone target dates for various SWPF milestones due to unforeseen equipment issues that DOE was not considering.
McDevitt said Saturday that DOE paid the company back pay for work Parsons had previously conducted. “DOE had been short paying Parsons based on previous contractual language,” he wrote. “With the new agreement now codified, DOE has paid all previous short pays.”
He declined to say how much DOE paid or what terms of the contract the department had failed to honor. The Energy Department did not respond to questions on the matter.
In March 2018, DOE accused Parsons of “deteriorating” performance at SWPF, including workers failing to adequately follows safety protocols and the company’s replacement of key personnel without proper federal approval. In a response the following month, Parsons said DOE had mischaracterized its performance.
The two sides resolved the matter, while also agreeing it was time to prepare a new project baseline detailing costs, schedule, and necessary steps to bring the facility online as soon and safely as possible. Parsons submitted its proposal on June 7. “We have reached an agreement on the Realized Risk Proposal and have established adequate cost and schedule incentives to achieve startup as soon as possible and cost effectively,” McDevitt stated in his email this week.
When pressed about the specifics of the proposal, including costs and schedules, McDevitt responded: “Unfortunately, can’t provide more information.”
