March 17, 2014

WORKERS AT HANFORD VIT PLANT MAY SEE FURLOUGH NOTICES

By ExchangeMonitor

As the Department of Energy works to obtain approval to shift funding at its cleanup projects to address current budgetary issues, workers at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant may start seeing furlough notices in the next few weeks unless DOE’s reprogramming request is soon finalized. The threat of worker furloughs at the WTP was raised in an April 2013 monthly project review presentation prepared by staff at the Department’s Office of River Protection, a copy of which was obtained by WC Monitor. “Contractor furlough notices will be issued in April, with impacts being seen in May,” the presentation says, though it does not go into detail as to how many workers may be impacted. “Under the CR [Continuing Resolution], sequestration has had a minimal impact on the project as a whole; control point funding continues to be an issue,” the presentation says. It also warns, “Significant cost variances are occurring due to waiting for the reprogramming.”

Late last week, DOE cleanup chief David Huizenga said the Department is about a week away from submitting its reprogramming requests to Congress for approval. The requests are intended to help DOE’s Office of Environmental Management better position funding among cleanup sites and among projects at those sites. As a result of the Continuing Resolution funding most federal programs for the remainder of this year, DOE’s cleanup funds have been kept largely at FY 2012 levels, which may not match up with current needs. According to the DOE presentation, at the WTP the Department is looking to shift $166 million away from the Pretreatment Facility, where work has largely been halted to resolve technical concerns, and to move approximately $120 million to the plant’s other main facilities. The remaining $46 million would go to the Hanford tank farms “and the labs to support the ORP mission,” the presentation says.

The DOE Office of River Protection declined to provide additional comment yesterday. For its part, WTP contractor Bechtel National does not currently anticipate having to implement furloughs, but is monitoring the budgetary situation facing the project closely, according to spokesman Todd Nelson. “Right at the moment, we don’t anticipate having to implement a plan like that,” Nelson said. He also noted, ‘We are looking at the spending versus what it looks like our budget is going to be for the rest of the year. … We are looking at this every week."

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