A Department of Energy assessment during April and May found longstanding concerns over fire suppression systems at the Hanford Site in Washington state have still not been fixed, according to a recent report.
Oversight of technical safety measures “are not adequate to ensure that safety significant FSSs [fire suppression systems] at the Central Waste Complex can still perform their safety functions,” DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments said in a report July 31. The document goes on to say “this issue has been known for at least five years and has not been corrected.”
“Emergency impairments of multiple fire systems at the 222-S Laboratory have not been resolved in a timely manner,” according to the Independent Assessment of Fire System Maintenance at Hanford. During the last three winters, fire prevention piping at one or more Hanford nuclear facilities have suffered freeze damage, according to the report.
The report was published after the Department of Justice sued Leidos-led landlord contractor Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS), accusing it of padding its bills while letting maintenance work slide. HMIS is responsible for the Hanford Fire Department and is frequently cited in the DOE fire report. Trial is scheduled in September 2025. Lingering fire safety concerns caused HMIS to receive less fee from DOE during its last scorecard review period.
While DOE’s oversight of its Leidos-led landlord is “comprehensive and substantive, no coordinated strategy has been established to review the overall operational performance of fire system maintenance,” according to the report.
Also, the training of some technicians assigned to inspection and maintenance of the fire suppression piping either fails to meet DOE standards or is not well documented, according to the report.
Overall, fire system maintenance programs “are generally adequately established,” the DOE report said. But “weaknesses continue to impact multiple Hanford Site nuclear facilities.” Furthermore, coordination between the HMIS fire system maintenance group and the Hanford nuclear contractors it supports “is not always adequate to ensure that preventive maintenance is performed as scheduled.”
Aging infrastructure can also hinder the reliability and adequacy of the water support for the fire suppression systems, DOE said in the report.
“Until the concerns identified in this report are addressed or effective mitigations are put in place, elevated risk associated with maintenance and reliability of fire systems remains,” according to the report.
While the DOE report said other contractors at Hanford can make fire safety improvements, HMIS was found to lack “an approved nuclear maintenance management program.”
”DOE and its contractor partners are ensuring fire suppression systems in Hanford Site facilities continue to protect people, property and the environment,” a DOE spokesperson said in a Wednesday email to the Exchange Monitor. “Inspections are in progress, systems with deficient components or conditions have been identified, and appropriate additional safety measures put in place until required maintenance actions are completed.”
