The Department of Energy has awarded Bechtel National almost 95% of a potential $15 million in fee for the company’s work on the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant during 2024 at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
Bechtel is taking home $14.2 million or 94.7% of a potential $15 million in total fee available for its work during the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2024. The long-awaited plant is finally supposed to start turning some of the less-radioactive liquid waste at Hanford into a solid glass form in August.
Bechtel has been working on the vitrification plant under a contract that started in December 2000 and is currently valued at $15.5-billion.
“We are thrilled to share the news that — for the second year in a row — we have earned an improved annual rating from our DOE Hanford Field Operations customer,” Bechtel’s Waste Treatment Plant Protect Director Brian Hartman said in a message emailed to Bechtel’s Hanford employees. The “excellent” rating is specifically for the plant’s high-level waste 2024 performance.
“The Award Fee Determination Scorecard is DOE’s annual subjective measure of our performance based on mutually agreed-upon goals,” Hartman said. “In 2023, the goals being measured were fully focused on the Project’s High-Level Waste (HLW) scope.
Bechtel has already completed construction of the Direct-Feed-Low-Activity-Waste Facilities at the plant, which are undergoing commissioning. Crews are not yet running simulant, designed to mimic liquid radioactive waste, through the systems, although that could start in a few weeks.
The low-level waste accounts for the vast majority of the 56 million gallons of underground tank waste leftover at Hanford from its decades as a plutonium production facility for the government. Some of it could eventually be grouted and trucked to out-of-state disposal facilities in Texas and Utah, DOE has said.
As for high-level waste vitrification, it is expected to begin in the 2030s. The company has shown “a strong commitment to completing the HLW design by 2027,” DOE said in its scorecard. While Bechtel scored “good” to “excellent” in most areas, DOE did identify some areas for improvement. The latter includes better safety training for new construction workers and “early mockup functional testing of components and systems.”
Bechtel won 92% of its potential fee for its 2023 work at the vitrification plant and 83% the year before.
