The Department of Energy Office of Enterprise Assessments is satisfied overall with safety programs Bechtel National is developing for a waste solidification plant aiming to start up late next year at the Hanford Site in Washington state, but says improvements are needed.
One area the agency should address prior to startup of Direct-Feed-Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) Facility at the Waste Immobilization and Treatment Plant is ensuring a sufficient number of qualified oversight people are present at DOE’s Office of River Protection, according to the Enterprise Assessments report dated Aug. 24.
Hanford Management cited some staff shortages but said posts should be filled around the time the low-activity waste glass vitrification approaches operational readiness late in 2023, the Enterprise Assessments office said in the report.
More federal representatives “will likely be needed to provide effective operational oversight as facilities complete the transition from construction and commissioning to waste treatment operations,” according to the report. The Enterprise Assessment office looked at the fire protection and maintenance programs for the Direct-Feed-Low-Activity Waste Facility.
DOE expects to start up DFLAW by the end of 2023 but a December amendment to the consent decree governing Hanford cleanup allows the agency and its contractors to take until 2024 to get the facility online. The plant will solidify the less radioactive portions of Hanford’s 56 millions of liquid waste, which is leftover from Manhattan Project and Cold War plutonium production for nuclear weapons.
The staffing level for Bechtel’s nuclear maintenance program at the facility looks good, according to the report. The DOE plan identifies a need for 114 craft people once the low-activity-waste facility is fully operational, with 108 of them currently aboard, according to the report.
But Bechtel’s maintenance procedures are “not designed for ease of use in the field” and were not always followed as written, according to the report. “Current implementation of the fire protection program lacks sufficient rigor, including in configuration management, to ensure that all fire protection requirements are met as the facility shifts” from construction to operations, which is targeted by the end of 2023.
Radiological control technicians also “are not proficient at performing fundamental radiological control tasks,” according to the report. There are no formal means in place at the facility for “documenting and measuring the practical skills necessary for [technicians] to perform their jobs.”
The areas cited in the assessments office report align with Bechtel plans as it moves closer to hot commissioning, a company spokesperson said by email Thursday. Bechtel has already revised its procedures and will make additional modifications as plant commissioning continues, the spokesperson said.
The Office of Enterprise Assessment carried out the onsite portion of its review in mid-May.
