March 17, 2014

BECHTEL BRINGING FORMER DOE YUCCA CHIEF SPROAT TO WTP

By ExchangeMonitor

As part of efforts to address safety culture concerns at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, Bechtel National is bringing over Ward Sproat from Bechtel’s Power Global Business Unit to aid in efforts to help better align engineering and nuclear safety activities. In his new role at the WTP, which goes into effect Feb. 21, Sproat will report directly to Bechtel National Project Manager Frank Russo and “help define and launch our NSQC [Nuclear Safety and Quality Culture] improvement efforts,” Russo said in a message sent to employees yesterday. Prior to joining Bechtel in 2009, Sproat headed up the Department of Energy’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which was responsible for the now-shuttered Yucca Mountain waste repository project. “Ward is uniquely qualified to help us resolve our design and safety basis alignment issues as we move into the licensing phase of the project and seek to resolve the remaining technical, design and operational issues,” Russo said.

Bechtel National is working to develop a comprehensive response plan to a series of assessments of the safety culture at the WTP conducted by DOE, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and the contractor, several of which found concerns that workers may be afraid to raise safety issues. “The importance of all of the reports—and the need to fully understand and address all of the recommendations and opportunities they present—requires us to develop a comprehensive plan of action,” Russo said. Also involved in the effort are Assistant Project Director for Integration Rick Kacich and Mike Coyle, manager of Nuclear Safety and Quality Culture and Commissioning Support, who have been tasked with developing “a comprehensive plan to prioritize actions, provide a framework for traceability from each report to the issues to be addressed, provide a means to track the status of the actions, and enable DOE oversight and coordination of actions, as appropriate,” Russo said.

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