The Department of Energy’s “fast-track, design-build approach” at the multibillion-dollar Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state resulted in cost increases and schedule delays, according to an Office of Inspector General probe of whistleblower allegations.
The report by DOE Inspector General Teri Donaldson was drafted back in August 2020 but was just released publicly this month after approval by the U.S. Office of Special Council. DOE declined to comment.
The 56-page document substantiated some allegations, but not others, raised by an unidentified whistleblower.
“While we confirmed some specific details included in the allegations, we are not making any formal recommendations,” the Inspector General wrote in the report.
The report backed the allegation that DOE “proposed and accepted an early start” for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP)’s Direct-Feed-Low-Activity Waste Facilities. This early start “created worker safety risks that the department had not yet analyzed.” The Office of Inspector General also agreed that increased expenses for the early start were not included in the plant’s cost funding profile.
The report also substantiates that the fast-track, design-build approach backfired. Fast-tracking at WTP essentially refers to starting construction of a particular section before the design work is complete. Design-build refers to issuance of a single contract to design and build the plant.
The Office of Inspector General failed to substantiate that DOE “repeatedly paid” Bechtel National “for work it did not perform,” according to the report.
Bechtel has a $15-billion contract to build the project. When the Bechtel contract started in 2000, the feds expected hot commissioning would start around January 2011 for facilities needed to turn both low-level and high-level radioactive tank waste into a glass form.
By the time of a 2016 federal court consent decree, hot commissioning for the low-activity waste facilities was pushed to Dec. 31, 2023 and 2033 for the high-level waste. Recently, DOE has said conversion of low-level waste will not begin until 2025.
The Office of Inspector General report could not back up the whistleblower allegation that Hanford’s Office of River Protection “knowingly misrepresented design and equipment quality” when applying for a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permit.
DOE declined to comment.
