January 04, 2015

WIPP Contractor Paid $21.5K in Fee So Far In FY14, Final Determination Pending

By ExchangeMonitor

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership has so far been paid $21,576 out of about $8.2 million in total available fee for Fiscal Year 2014, according to contractor fee information recently posted by the Department of Energy. The scorecard notes that the final fee determination is still pending. The WIPP M&O contractor is largely paid fee based on the amount of waste emplaced in the WIPP underground, and waste operations were halted less than halfway into FY’14 after a salt truck fire and radiological release in February. In July, DOE announced that it reduced the available fee for NWP by $2 million in connection with the fire, though the contractor had the ability to earn back about 50 percent of that reduction through implementing corrective actions.

NWP said in a statement: “The U.S. Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office has taken actions that reduced the level of ‘fee’ available to the Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) for FY14 as a result of the incidents that have happened at WIPP this year. After submission and evaluation of the contractor’s self-assessment, DOE will make a determination on the value of the FY14 fee award.” It adds: “Both the federal and contractor workforce are focused on completing recovery activities and restoring the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant facility to normal operations while also implementing necessary corrective actions and ensuring the health and safety of our workers, the public and the environment.”

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