The Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General could not substantiate allegations that the Amentum-led cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee fudged its safety and health records in order to look better for DOE.
That is the crux of an Office of Inspector General (OIG) report posted online Thursday. The office received an allegation that URS|CH2M Oak Ridge LLC (UCOR) committed fraud by misrepresenting its reporting to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The DOE grades contractors on a variety of performance factors including safety. OIG investigated the matter between May and December 2021.
“We did not substantiate the allegation that UCOR committed fraud by intentionally misrepresenting the date and classification of employee injuries or illnesses on OSHA documentation to increase fees and improve the likelihood of being awarded another contract,” according to the Inspector General’s office. But the OIG did find UCOR and DOE’s Office of Oak Ridge Environmental Management differed in their interpretations of occupational safety reporting.
The local Environmental Management office told UCOR its reporting should match the guidelines of a particular OSHA form, but the contractor declined to do so. The OIG has recommended that UCOR and Environmental Management get on the same page with OSHA recordkeeping by May 31. The parties have agreed to do so.
For those not traveling to Phoenix in a couple of weeks for the annual Waste Management Symposia, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is making its Business Opportunities Forum session available online.
Topics during the 9:45 a.m. Mountain Time session from the conference at the Phoenix Convention Center will include an update on status of ongoing and upcoming procurement opportunities, DOE said in a Friday notice on the federal contracting website, SAM.gov.
There is no fee to attend the nearly two-hour contracting session via Webex. The DOE Environmental Management office instructs those planning to attend online to register by close of business on March 3 by emailing Carmen Simpson at [email protected].
The $7.6-billion DOE nuclear cleanup also plans one-on-one meetings with small businesses attending the Phoenix conference to gather industry feedback on issues like barriers to small businesses at the prime and subcontract level, according to the notice. To set up such a meeting during Waste Management, email Anne Marie Bird with DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center at [email protected].
The annual Waste Management (WM) Conference, presented by WM Symposia, is scheduled for March 6 through 10 at the Phoenix Convention Center. The event, which can typically draw 2,000 or more participants, is devoted to radioactive waste storage and disposal issues worldwide. It is returning as an in-person conference this year after being only online during March 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm is remaining in Washington, D.C., this week after canceling a trip to the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state due to tensions in Eastern Europe that on Thursday morning erupted into a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Given the uncertainty in global energy markets and the global security situation, out of an abundance of caution the Secretary will remain in DC this week,” a DOE spokesperson said via email late Wednesday, hours before the full-fledged invasion.
Granholm was to make her first visit as secretary to the former plutonium production complex as well as the neighboring Pacific Northwest National Laboratory this Friday, according to local news coverage in the region. Last week Granholm and DOE Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White visited the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The departing contractor in charge of liquid waste management at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is leaving the property “better than when we arrived,” Phil Breidenbach, who heads Savannah River Remediation, said Friday via Twitter.
“We hope by working with local partners we have done the same for our community,” Breidenbach goes on to say. Savannah River Remediation, made up of Amentum, Bechtel, Jacobs and BWX Technologies, is in the final days of its tenure at the site. The group began its contract work, now valued at $7.5 billion in July 2009.
The incumbent is turning over its responsibility to the new contractor group, BWXT-led Savannah River Mission Completion. The new contractor is scheduled to take over by Monday.