WIPP Fee Coming Out ?Very Soon? Will Be Impacted by 2014 Incidents

The Fiscal Year 2014 fee determination for Waste Isolation Pilot Plant M&O contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership, to be released “very soon,” will be reduced “significantly” due to the 2014 incidents at the plant, Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management Acting Assistant Secretary Mark Whitney said yesterday. Responding to questions about WIPP accountability at a House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing, Whitney said that NWP’s fee determination is being finalized. “There have been a couple of actions that we’ve already taken with respect to the contract and the fee, called conditional payment of fee actions, which have reduced the amount of fee they can earn significantly,” he said. “I believe within the next several weeks the final fee determination will be made and made public.”

 

WIPP suffered a truck fire and radiological release in February 2014, and in June DOE cut the amount of fee NWP can earn in FY’14 by 25 percent, or $2 million, in response to the fire. EM has taken a second action since that has further reduced the amount of available fee, Whitney said. “The site has taken two actions to substantially reduce the amount of fee available to be earned,” he told WC Monitor following the hearing. “The next determination will be essentially working with fee that is a lower number than what we started with. I don’t want to get ahead of the actual fee determination by the official.”