More Sentences Come Down in Hanford Time Card Fraud Case
WC Monitor
5/1/2015
Four more defendants were sentenced on felony charges related to timecard fraud at Hanford late this week, receiving fines of up to $165,744 but no incarceration. All were paid hourly wages as radiological control technicians for CH2M Hill Hanford Group, the former Hanford tank farm contractor. They admitted to collecting overtime pay for hours they were not at work at the Hanford tank farms. The court is always concerned about disparities of sentences, said Judge Lonny Suko in Eastern Washington District U.S. Court. Earlier, some defendants accused of aiding timecard fraud had criminal charges dropped and paid civil fines, he said. All were managers or supervisors. In addition, four supervisors who went to trial on charges related to timecard fraud were acquitted. “The issue is one of fairness and justice,” Suko said. He followed the same sentencing strategy he used last week when the first group of hourly defendants was sentenced. He passed out sentences that included substantial fines last week, but not the incarceration that the prosecution had requested for some of them.
This week, Suko imposed fines for the four additional former CH2M Hill employees, based on the amount of pay the prosecution estimated they received for hours they were not at work. He did not reduce any of the proposed fines as he did last week for two workers who provided what the prosecution called “outstanding” assistance in the timecard fraud investigation. Among their help was making telephone calls recorded by investigators to provide evidence of timecard fraud by other CH2M Hill tank farm employees. The defendants sentenced this week all provided substantial assistance to the prosecution, resulting in assistant U.S. attorney Tyler Tornabene requesting less incarceration than called for under federal sentencing guidelines. Their assistance included help, such as testifying for the prosecution at trial, but they were not asked to and did not make monitored phone calls.
Lead Rad. Control Technician to Pay Highest Fine
The judge required Joel Radford to pay the largest fine, $165,744. He received a slightly higher wage than the other workers sentenced Tuesday because he served as lead radiological control technician, Tornabene said. “This case just eats up my gut,” said his attorney, Larry Stephenson. Radford was paid more money than he should have been, but “the people above him were allowing that and looking the other way,” Stephenson said. Radford told the judge, “I didn’t know the magnitude of the situation I was putting myself in by what I did.” He continues to work as a radiological control technician, but at half the wages available at Hanford.
William Kim Jones is required to pay a fine of $147,012. “I just feel bad about the whole situation,” Jones told the judge. “I want to make it right. I want to move on with my life.” He’s making money through some small businesses he owns and accepts he will never again make the amount of pay he received at Hanford, said his attorney. Darin Judy is required to pay a fine of $108,073. Judy has had a difficult time finding work since he lost his Hanford job in 2013, said his attorney. Judy said when he started work at the tank farms in 2005 he observed the culture that had workers claiming overtime work they did not earn for months and then started to do the same. “I allowed the culture to change my values,” he said. Lee Roberts is required to pay a fine of $32,166 after claiming less overtime than the other defendants sentenced this week. “I apologize,” Roberts said. “My life has been greatly impacted. It makes me analyze my decision making.” He has returned to school to prepare for a new career.
‘These Are Not Easy Matters for Anyone Involved’
When CH2M Hill had the tank farm contract, overtime often was called out in eight-hour shifts to induce workers to take the shifts. When the work was completed, sometimes hours early, workers would go home but claim full eight-hour shifts on their timecards at time and a half or double time pay, according to court documents. CH2M Hill agreed to pay $18.5 million to the federal government in 2013 to settle civil and criminal allegations of defrauding taxpayers through widespread timecard fraud at Hanford when it held the Department of Energy tank farm contract at Hanford from fall 1999 to fall 2008. The prosecution has requested six-month sentences, with all but four weekends served as home confinement, for Radford, Judy and Jones and three months home confinement for Roberts. The only defendant in the cases related to the timecard fraud investigation sentenced to incarceration has been a supervisor who pleaded guilty.
Defendants sentenced this week were pulled into the culture of claiming unearned pay, going along to get along, Suko said. He said he hoped the cases change the way business is conducted at Hanford. “I would hope that with the passage of time the wounds created all the way around with this case heal,” the judge said. “These are not easy matters for anyone involved.”
DOE Putting on Hold EIS for Natural Gas Use for Hanford Vit Plant
WC Monitor
5/1/2015
The Department of Energy is putting work on hold on an environmental impact statement looking at using natural gas to replace diesel fuel for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant and evaporator operations. About $6 million has been spent on the EIS. In February 2012, DOE anticipated a draft of the study being released in spring 2013, with a final version ready by fall. DOE projected then that switching fuels could save $527 million to $823 million, depending on the price of fuel, over the life of the project. It also would eliminate the need for 42 truckloads per week of diesel to be delivered to Hanford and would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 1 million tons. “The Department of Energy remains supportive of completing the analyses necessary to consider bringing natural gas onto the Hanford Site,” DOE said in a statement this week. But given current cleanup priorities and schedules, it does not plan to pursue the project now. Not only has the startup of the vitrification plant been delayed, but Hanford could be facing some tight budget years. “DOE intends to resume work and complete the EIS in the future,” DOE said.
The Tri-City Development Council was told that the EIS could be restarted in three-to-five years and cost $3 million to complete, said Gary Petersen, TRIDEC vice president of Hanford programs. However, TRIDEC believes the draft study is all but done and should be released to the public. A draft prepared at Hanford was forwarded to DOE officials in Washington, D.C., nearly a year ago, Petersen said. Most of the remaining money that would be spent on the study would be for steps such as holding public hearings and gathering comments on the draft and then advancing work on a final document and a decision on the project, according to TRIDEC. The draft should show whether using natural gas at Hanford is a feasible project, Petersen said.
WTP Expected to Use 30,000 Gallons of Diesel Per Day
When DOE announced the EIS in early 2012 it had not yet conceded that the vitrification plant likely would not be operating by a 2019 deadline. Now DOE and the state are in federal court over delays at the plant. The soonest any operations are expected to start is 2022, with treatment of high-level radioactive waste delayed longer as technical issues are resolved. The vitrification plant is planned to use at least 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel a day at full operation to feed boilers that generate steam for heating and radioactive waste processing. Natural gas also has been proposed for the Hanford 242-A Evaporator, which reduces the amount of liquid waste being stored until the waste can be processed for disposal. Its boilers are expected to use 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel a day in future operations under current plans. DOE officials said in early 2011 that it would be continuing to look at additional options for natural gas use at Hanford, including switching to natural gas to power some vehicles.
A gas line that is a minimum of six inches in diameter has been proposed by DOE, but the Mid-Columbia Energy Initiative had asked DOE to consider putting in a larger gas line that could be used for other energy projects. Cascade Natural Gas would own, construct, operate and maintain the pipeline. It said in 2012 that if the project moved forward, construction could begin in 2014 and be finished in six months to a year. A pipeline about 30 miles long was proposed that would run from a transmission line east of Hanford under the Columbia River to central Hanford. It would cost about $35 million, Cascade Natural Gas said in 2012.
The EIS was expected to consider options for the best place for the pipeline to go under the river. Switching to natural gas for the vitrification plant also likely would have required a steam plant to be built at least six-tenths of a mile away from the vitrification plant as a safety measure rather than delivering natural gas to the plant’s campus. Under the Federal Energy Management Program, savings achieved by using natural gas rather than diesel could be used for upgrades that would improve the energy efficiency of the aging Hanford infrastructure.
