WASHINGTON — In a mostly symbolic milestone that nevertheless carries measurable cost savings, the Energy Department could close out Washington Closure Hanford’s contract by the end of 2017, a senior DOE official said here Wednesday.
“I think we may be at the end of this year able to say we have everything done to close out their contract,” Doug Shoop, manager of DOE’s Richland Operations Office, said during a meeting of the industry-sponsored House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus on Capitol Hill. “That would be record time.”
Shoop said DOE has already saved “about $3.7 million on just contract closeout things” because the agency essentially started the work while the former Hanford Site river-corridor cleanup contractor was still on the job.
Closeout is the mostly paperwork process that certifies a contract was fulfilled according to terms.
“We actually started figuring out how to close out that office way early on in their contract,” Shoop told the mostly industry audience. “We decided early on in that contract we did not want to have a long, expedited contract closeout.”
Washington Closure Hanford, a partnership of AECOM, Bechtel National, and CH2M, managed the $2.9 billion River Corridor Closure Project from 2005 through 2016. The company transferred the last of its Hanford work to current central plateau contractor CH2M Plateau Remediation in August.
