Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, the Department of Energy contractor in charge of remediation at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, was deemed mostly “satisfactory” during fiscal 2021 and earned roughly half of its potential “adjective” fee, according to a recently-released scorecard from the agency.
The joint venture made up of Jacobs, Fluor and BWX Technologies, earned about 74% or nearly $7.3 million out of a total potential fee of $9.9 million from DOE for the 12-month period ended Sept. 30, 2021. But it earned less than $1.5 million out of a potential $3 million in areas where DOE officials judged the contractor’s performance according to adjectival ratings.
For its performance-based incentive fee, the contractor won roughly $5.8 million, including some $814,000 carried over from fiscal 2020, according to the scorecard. The performance-based fee available was more than $6 million, according to the scorecard.
While deemed “excellent” by DOE in its implementation of business systems, Four Rivers was assessed only satisfactory in the areas of quality, schedule, cost control, management and regulatory compliance.
“The Contractor was able to turn around a negative performance trend experienced during FY [fiscal year] 20,” for workplace safety, according to the scorecard from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. But DOE wants to see continued improvement for “program and management processes based on hazards, process maturity and operational performance.”
When it comes to costs, Four Rivers still needs to “correct issues and improve negative cost variance,” DOE said in the scorecard.On the management front, filling key personnel vacancies is a priority, the agency said.
“A corrective action plan was implemented to address indoor and outdoor areas where presumed asbestos containing materials were present, which decreased the number of asbestos spills from previous year,” DOE said of the contractor’s regulatory efforts. During fiscal 2021, Four Rivers received one technical safety requirement limiting condition for operation violation, four notices of violation and one letter of warning, according to the scorecard.
“I encourage FRNP [Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership] to take advantage of opportunities for improvement identified during this evaluation while continuing to build on areas of strength,” DOE’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office manager Joel Bradburne said in an accompanying release.
Four Rivers’ current five-year, $1.4 billion contract at Paducah started in June 2017 and is currently slated to run through June 19.
