The Hanford Site is developing an acquisitions strategy as it eyes the expiration of major cleanup contracts in the next couple years, officials said Wednesday at the “Hanford Live” virtual question-and-answer session.
Department of Energy officials had expected to release a comprehensive contracting strategy for Hanford in January and to issue draft requests for proposals later this year for upcoming procurements at the nuclear cleanup site. Now DOE is working with the energy secretary’s office to release an acquisition strategy in the next several months, said Doug Shoop, manager of the DOE Richland Operations Office.
All three of Hanford’s large remediation contracts will expire in 2018 or 2019, although Bechtel National will continue to construct and commission the Waste Treatment Plant. Some of the smaller DOE Hanford contracts, such as the agreement for administration of workers’ compensation, also might be included in the new contracting strategy. “In theory all will be in place by 2019,” Shoop said.
The Department of Energy has not offered details on what the new strategy will cover.
At Wednesday’s event, several people submitted questions online regarding the difficulties Hanford personnel have in securing approval of workers’ compensation claims from the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries. A bill in the state Legislature to ease approval of Hanford worker claims for chemical vapor and other exposures failed during the current session. Shoop said DOE is working with senior labor leaders and the state to enhance the process that results in approval or denial of claims. Improvements will be institutionalized to ensure they are sustained over the long term, he said.
One person asked if the panelists at the session — which included representatives from Hanford, the Hanford Advisory Board, and state and federal regulators — would want their own children to work at Hanford. It is one of the safest places to work, responded Ben Harp, deputy manager of the DOE Office of River Protection. Extensive work planning, knowledge of hazards, an as-low-as-reasonably-achievable policy for radiation exposures, and safety expertise protect workers, he said.
Susan Leckband, chairwoman of the Hanford Advisory Board, said not only did she work at Hanford for 25 years but she has a son who has also worked there. Workers are allowed to protect themselves as they see fit, said Dennis Faulk, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Hanford program manager and a former site worker. Workers can wear more protective respirators than mandated for a task, for example.
One of the main obstacles to remediation of Hanford’s Cold War plutonium production legacy is securing an adequate budget from Congress, said Alex Smith, director of the Washington state Department of Ecology Nuclear Waste Program. Too little money means cleanup takes longer and the cost goes up, she said.
Faulk said he focused on the need to develop new technologies for tough cleanup problems. Asked about the Trump administration’s plans for deep funding and staffing reductions at the Environmental Protection Agency, Faulk said he expected Hanford to remain a top EPA priority in the Northwest region and he did not anticipate a change in the agency’s oversight of the nuclear reservation.
Shoop was challenged about whether a continuing project to move about 350 DOE Richland Operations Office workers from the Richland Federal Building and to buildings several miles away in the Stevens Center complex is using funds that would be better spent on cleanup. Contractor workers now in Stevens Center are vacating offices to make room for DOE personnel, with many of the contractors moving to the Federal Building. DOE officials have said the move will promote communication between DOE workers at the Richland Operations Office and the Office of River Protection as both focus on central Hanford cleanup. Office of River Protection personnel already are based at the Stevens Center. Funds for the move will not come from the cleanup budget but from a program-direction budget, according to Shoop. He said most of the work was being done by Hanford staff: “There are no negative impacts to cleanup.”
This was the first time that DOE has tried an online-only meeting. DOE called it Hanford Live, but it had much the same format as the Hanford State of the Site meetings the department once held annually in communities around the region. The last State of the Site was held in 2014. More than 100 people watched most of the livestream of the Wednesday meeting, with an unknown number of people also watching on Facebook. Reaction to the change was mixed during the meeting, with some people posting that the online format was more convenient. Viewers sent questions from as far away as the United Kingdom and Japan. But some people posted they did not think officials adequately answered certain tough questions. Faulk said the EPA will continue to advocate for in-person meetings to allow face-to-face discussions.
The format was controversial when it was announced. The Hanford Advisory Board said webinars are an excellent way to share information but are “an impersonal tool for a controlled exchange” and do not provide a meaningful way for the public to influence cleanup decisions. DOE and its regulators have asked those who attended the meeting virtually to fill out a survey to gauge the success of the format.
