DOE, Contractor, Expect Work to Fully Resume in ‘Early’ Summer
Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
6/12/2015
Some design-related activities have been suspended at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant after the Department of Energy raised concerns with procedures developed by project contractor Bechtel National. The suspended activities include “work related to nuclear criticality safety design” and “nuclear safety analyses,” according to a recently released Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board site representative report, dated April 24. “In the course of performing oversight, [the DOE Office of River Protection] determined that some BNI procedures and guides did not fully meet contract provisions,” a DOE spokesperson said in a written response this week.
At issue were “a new engineering department project instruction related to licensing documents and two design guides for nuclear safety engineering activities” developed by Bechtel National, according to the DNFSB site representative report. The procedures were based on an implementation plan Bechtel National submitted to DOE last December intended to update “the regulatory construct” as the WTP began to prepare for commissioning. “This updated approach refines and improves the current regulatory construct implemented on the WTP project, streamlines nuclear safety processes and reduces schedule risk associated with the management and completion of PDSA [Preliminary Documented Safety Analyses], DSA [Documented Safety Analyses] and TSR [Technical Safety Requirements] activities,” says the implementation plan, a copy of which was obtained by WC Monitor.
New Procedures Unable to ‘Accomplish Consistent and Acceptable’ Work
In late March, though, DOE told Bechtel National that it was withholding approval of the implementation plan based on a number of concerns. In a March 26 letter, obtained by WC Monitor, WTP Federal Project Director William Hamel wrote that “it is not clear to ORP as to how this IP meets prior commitments, processes, activities, tasks and deliverables to support justification for their closure.”
Then in April, DOE directed Bechtel National to address what it described as the “unauthorized implementation” of the implementation plan after the contractor issued revised Engineering Department Project Instruction and the new design guides. “None of these documents had been provided to ORP for review while in draft form, as had been previously requested by ORP on several occasions. The new and revised documents do not appear to comply with the BNI Quality Assurance Manual, as they lack adequate detail to accomplish consistent and acceptable safety basis related work,” Hamel wrote in an April 17 letter, obtained by WC Monitor.
DOE, Bechtel Says Suspension Will Have Little Overall Impact
Both DOE and Bechtel National said this week that the suspension of some design-related activities will have little overall impact on the completion of the Hanford vit plant. “We expect the issue that gave rise to the suspension to be addressed and for work to resume in early summer. We do not expect this matter to have any overall impact on the WTP project,” the DOE spokesperson said.
In a separate statement, Bechtel National spokeswoman Suzanne Heaston said, “Bechtel National, Inc. recently revised the WTP procedure and guides to streamline processes to better implement nuclear safety standards and more effectively meet design and construction goals. In doing so, discrepancies arose, and as part of a strong nuclear safety and quality culture, BNI temporarily paused some work to eliminate those discrepancies. Some of the suspended work has been restarted. We’re working with ORP to resolve the few remaining issues. We anticipate that the remaining suspended work will resume in early summer.”
Issue Illustrates Need for ‘Owner’s Agent’ at WTP, Watchdog Group Says
Tom Carpenter, executive director of the watchdog group Hanford Challenge, said this week that the issue illustrates the need for DOE to employ an “owner’s agent” at the WTP to help improve oversight. The Department has been facing growing calls to enlist an owner’s agent for the project to help provide an independent oversight ability separate from Bechtel National, and last week, acting DOE cleanup chief Mark Whitney said the Department expects to complete “within the next several weeks” an evaluation of options for adding additional oversight capability. “I do, in fact, believe that an Owner’s Agent, had they been in place, would have made a difference. More so, however, a separate Design Authority,” Carpenter said in a written response to WC Monitor. “DOE has a conflict of interest as the owner of the facility that is desperately trying to please several key constituencies, such as Congress and the State of [Washington], all of whom are demanding results and displays of progress. Inevitably shortcuts are taken, and in this case the contractor failed to institute necessary quality assurance and nuclear safety requirements,” he said.
