South Carolina: ‘Treatment Delay Is Unacceptable’
Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
9/19/2014
The Department of Energy has approved a new baseline for the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility that includes a nearly $1 billion cost increase from previous official estimates and pushes back plant startup by as much as five years. The baseline change became necessary after lengthy delays in delivery of 10 key vessels for the plant and has been in the works for since early 2012, when construction contractor Parsons submitted a revised estimate at completion for the project. The new baseline puts the total project cost at $2.3 billion with a startup by early 2021, with an early target to complete commissioning by December 2018. The previous baseline set in 2009 totaled $1.34 billion and would complete startup by an October 2015 regulatory commitment.
The SWPF is 75 percent complete and is designed to exponentially increase processing rates at Savannah River’s tank farms in an effort to close out the site’s high-level waste tanks. In March 2012, Parsons completed its new estimate in light of the component delays, which totaled $1.78 billion for construction and startup by the 2015 date. However, discussions on an agreement for completion of the project stretched out for over a year. In April 2013, Parsons and DOE reached an agreement in principle to complete construction of the project by the end of 2016 that totaled $1.7 billion, which did not include commissioning and startup. DOE approved the baseline update this August.
The new baseline increased construction costs by $674.4 million, commissioning costs by $186.9 million, design costs by $2.4 million and other project costs by nearly $118.9 million, DOE Savannah River spokesman Jim Giusti said in a written response this week. “All technical issues related to the SWPF design have been resolved,” Giusti said in a release. “A recent independent construction project review identified no major issues to indicate the current construction schedule cannot be met. That review team’s analysis validated EM’s schedule to complete commissioning and recommended moving forward with the newly revised baseline.”
South Carolina: ‘Treatment Delay is Unacceptable’
The question remains as to how the state of South Carolina will take into account the new schedule when it comes to either renegotiating regulatory commitments or enforcing penalties. Ongoing daily penalties of $105,000 could be levied for failure to start up the SWPF by 2015. “The SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) milestone for startup of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is still October 2015. This milestone exists to drive risk reduction for the 37 million gallons of high level waste in aging tanks. Waste treatment is key in reducing that risk and closing tanks,” DHEC Federal Facilities Liaison Shelly Wilson said this week in a written response. “In addition to delay of SWPF, the Department of Energy (DOE) has slowed even existing treatment to half to a third of capacity. Treatment delay is unacceptable to DHEC. DHEC believes that DOE should be maximizing all treatment to position themselves to meet milestone commitments. The Department of Energy has not requested an extension to the 2015 milestone.”
In June, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control Director Catherine Templeton sent a letter to DOE warning of the penalties for SWPF and tank closure milestones if the Department does not request sufficient funding. For DOE’s part, Giusti said this week: “The Department will continue to keep SCDHEC informed on our liquid waste system planning efforts and looks forward to continued discussions on the results, and on the development of a path forward to best address our mutual concerns.”
Parsons: Baseline ‘Positive Step Forward’
Parsons says it will continue to work with DOE to complete the facility. “Parsons sees the Department of Energy’s recent approval of the $2.3 billion revised total project cost baseline for the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) as a very important and positive step forward for the program,” Parsons spokeswoman Erin Kuhlman said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the DOE to resolve all outstanding items and to completing construction, testing, commissioning, and hot operations of the SWPF. We continue to focus on safely delivering a first-of-its-kind facility that will efficiently process salt waste at the Savannah River Site.”
