CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. (CHPRC) has been awarded 92 percent of the fee available for fiscal 2016, the Department of Energy announced Monday. That compares to 95 percent the previous year.
The Hanford Site cleanup contractor earned $14.1 million of $15.4 million available for the budget year ended Sept. 30, 2016.
“CHPRC was very responsive to customer needs,” DOE said in a one-page summary of the fee award.
CHPRC, the prime for remediation of Hanford’s central plateau, has also taken over remaining work in the river corridor zone, making it responsible for most Hanford cleanup not related to the former plutonium production site’s waste tank farms.
The contractor would have earned more of the fee but did not meet three of 27 performance measures that required certain work to be completed in fiscal 2016. It did not receive a dozen sludge treatment storage containers that had been ordered, according to the DOE summary. CHPRC also did not complete the roof design for the REDOX processing plant and did not finish all required ventilation and waste stabilization work at the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility, where preparations are being made to move cesium and strontium capsules from pools to dry storage. The work covering all three performance measures has since been completed, including replacing the REDOX roof to keep the structure undisturbed until a cleanup plan is in place.
CHPRC received $11.6 million of the $12.6 million available for meeting performance objectives. It received an additional $625,000 for completing a fiscal 2018 performance measure early, dispositioning legacy buildings and ancillary equipment associated with the groundwater treatment program. The remaining fee earned was for a subjective evaluation of its performance, with $1.9 million earned of $2.2 million available.
CHPRC President Ty Blackford listed the contractor’s fiscal 2016 achievements in response to the fee announcement. It removed 180,000 pounds of contaminants from groundwater, completed procurement of equipment to move radioactive sludge farther from the Columbia River, made final preparations to begin demolishing the Plutonium Finishing Plant, and stabilized legacy contamination in the Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility where the cesium and strontium capsules are stored.
“We look forward to safely advancing risk reduction across the Central Plateau during the remaining contract period,” he said. That includes completing demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant, starting to move K Basin sludge out of the K West Basin, preparing the 324 Building for removal of highly radioactive contamination beneath the structure, and further optimizing Hanford’s groundwater treatment capabilities.
CHPRC’s 10-year contract is set to expire at the end of fiscal 2018. The contract was valued at $4.5 billion when it was awarded, which did not include an additional $1.3 billion in economic stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
