ITG SEEKS TO RECOVER WITHHELD FEE
WC Monitor
3/28/2014
The Department of Energy is considering a request from Idaho Treatment Group, LLC, the managing contractor for the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project, to recover $150,000 in fee withheld for safety concerns. ITG requested the fee in a letter sent in late February to DOE outlining a number of steps the contractor has taken to address safety concerns. WC Monitor obtained a copy of the Feb. 25 letter last week through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. “Aggressive corrective actions that have been implemented in the past few months have been effective,” the letter says. DOE has not yet made a decision on ITG’s request, Danielle Miller, a spokeswoman for the Department’s Idaho Operations Office, said this week. ITG declined to comment this week.
DOE chose to withhold the $150,000 in fee last September because of a set of Technical Safety Requirement violations and recurring safety issues (WC Monitor, Vol. 25 No. 7). “ITG has repeatedly failed to comply with approved WS&H [Worker Safety and Health] aspects of its Integrated Safety Management System to develop and implement effective corrective actions to prevent event recurrence,” a DOE contracting officer wrote in a Sept. 23, 2013, letter, a copy of which WC Monitor obtained last week through a FOIA request. The letter goes on to state, “ITG’s repeated failure to prevent event recurrence is unacceptable. ITG is required to take immediate action to reverse the adverse trends in WS&H. DOE-ID expects ITG to identify and implement all necessary steps to achieve immediate, obvious and lasting improvement in safety performance. Failure to achieve satisfactory levels of performance will result in additional contractual action.”
In its February letter, ITG cited several examples of what it said was improved safety performance, including the fact that it had no TSR violations in six months, no dropped waste drums in nine months and no RCRA permit violations in eight months. ITG also said it had two improvement plans under way that have “contributed and will continue to contribute to improving operational and safety performance,” and that it had worked to address issues related to Level B suits used by workers. In addition, the Feb. 25 letter states, “ITG has implemented significant improvements in the Work Planning and Control Process (which has improved the safe and compliant preparation of work packages with worker involvement and management review), the conduct and accountability of the Plan of the Week/Plan of the Day (which has improved the safe and complaint release and integration of maintenance and operation work), and effective use of the step back/stop work process in conjunction with improved event investigation (which has led to avoiding non-compliances and/or reporting minor issues before they lead to more significant non-compliances).”
BEA GETS FIVE-YEAR EXTENSION FOR LAB CONTRACT
WC Monitor
3/28/2014
Battelle Energy Alliance has received a five-year extension to its current contract to manage the Idaho National Laboratory, which will keep BEA in place through Sept. 30, 2019. The five-year option was part of BEA’s original contract to manage INL, which began on Feb. 1, 2005. According to BEA, its five-year option was exercised because of its “consistently strong annual performance and success in managing” the lab, which is the Department of Energy’s main nuclear energy research facility. “This action is significant for all INL employees, and their hard work and dedication made it possible,” Laboratory Director John Grossenbacher said in a release issued late this week. “They grew the capabilities of the lab, improved the infrastructure, strengthened our intellectual leadership, and accomplished world-class technology research, development, demonstration and deployment.”
