Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said Wednesday she will ask for a briefing on the Department of Energy’s new end-state contracting model for nuclear cleanup projects, which will be used for the first time at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
Cantwell announced her intention after hearing concerns following a tour of the Hanford Site. The site visit comes ahead of congressional budget discussions after the Trump administration requested a $2.1 billion budget for Hanford in the next fiscal year, she said. The proposal represents an 18 percent cut from current spending.
The senator on Wednesday hosted a roundtable discussion with leaders of Hanford unions, the Washington state Department of Ecology, the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC), and Hanford Communities, a coalition of area governments, to learn about their budget priorities.
Participants aired concerns about the budget, which they said are compounded by worries about the award of three new major Hanford cleanup contracts from late July through August. The new contractors will be in place just as the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council’s labor agreement expires, said Jeff McDaniel, president of the umbrella group for 15 unions that work at Hanford.
Negotiations generally start between Hanford contractors and HAMTC about a year and a half before the labor agreement expires, he said. But HAMTC won’t know for several months who will lead work on the contracts. McDaniel said DOE rejected his request for a one-year extension to the labor agreement.
There is always uncertainty in the workforce as new contracts are awarded, said Pam Larsen, executive director of Hanford Communities. While most workers transition from the expiring contract to the new contract, they still must wait to hear what the new work plans involve and what mix of skills will be needed. “It impacts the local economy, because if you don’t know if you have a job, you are not spending money,” Larsen said. “Kids don’t know if there is money to go to college next year. It is just very, very upsetting to families.”
Local governments, which depend on sales taxes, track dips in revenue each time there is a major contractor changeover, according to Larsen. Hanford Communities unsuccessfully requested that the Energy Department award the three new major contracts one at a time rather than all within several weeks, she said.
The three upcoming Hanford awards, all for up to 10 years, are: the Hanford Tank Closure Contract, the Hanford Mission Essential Services Contract, and the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract.
In the end-state approach promoted by Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White, the emphasis is on paying higher fees to contractors for completing major milestones early and under cost projections. It has been called a major reform effort in DOE contracting.
The end-state contracting model proposed for the tank farms and Central Plateau cleanup likely will create additional uncertainty for workers, as well as budget uncertainty, said Alex Smith, manager of the Department of Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program. The winning teams will come on board with plans for work in the initial six months or a year of the contract, she said, and then propose to the Energy Department work to complete over the rest of the decade. Tasks will be assigned after negotiations between contractors and the Energy Department over scope and pay, participants at the roundtable told Cantwell.
The Department of Ecology also worried about progress in beginning treatment of low-activity radioactive waste at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant by a 2023 milestone set by the federal court. Great progress toward that milestone is being made, Smith said, but “historically there has been a disruption in work anytime there is a contract change.” Union officials agreed that momentum on projects inevitably would slow during the contract changeovers.
Union officials also emphasized the Trump administration’s proposal for a $416 million cut to the Hanford budget for fiscal 2020. When the Hanford Site loses workers, it also loses its investment in their training, said Randy Walli, business manager for Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598. A worker needs six to eight weeks of training to enter the Hanford radioactive waste storage tank farms, said representatives of the Central Washington Building Trades. When pipefitters lose their Hanford jobs, they typically find work elsewhere and don’t return to the DOE site, Walli said.
Hanford Communities and TRIDEC are concerned about a lack of funding for key projects under the White House budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. According to information presented at the roundtable, the administration’s request is about $1.2 billion short of the funding needed to be considered compliant with the milestones in the legally binding Tri-Party Agreement on Hanford cleanup and those ordered by the federal court in a 2016 consent decree.
The administration’s budget request does not provide enough money to prepare the infrastructure needed to support the start of low-activity waste treatment by 2023, said David Reeploeg, vice president of federal affairs for TRIDEC. Infrastructure is needed to prepare a low-activity waste stream for treatment and to deliver it to the treatment plant.
Hanford Communities is concerned that the budget is $34 million short of the amount needed for continued work in the next fiscal year to move cesium and strontium capsules from underwater storage at Hanford’s aging Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility to dry storage. The concrete pool that holds the capsules now is at risk of a breach in the event of a severe earthquake. The proposed budget also is $16 million short of the funding needed in fiscal 2020 to work on cleanup of high-risk disposal areas contaminated with plutonium from the Plutonium Finishing Plant, according to Hanford Communities.
