Mission Support Alliance (MSA) has earned its highest award fee since it became the Hanford Site’s services contractor in 2009. The Department of Energy announced late Monday it was awarding MSA $20.4 million, or about 94 percent of the maximum $21.7 million available for fiscal 2017.
That was more than the $19.2 million, or 91 percent of the available fee, MSA earned in fiscal 2016, and the $18.8 million, or 89 percent of the available fee, it earned in fiscal 2015.
“This year’s successes highlight our commitment to delivering the right solution at the right time, and for the right value, which helps enable progress on Hanford cleanup,” MSA President Bob Wilkinson said in a statement.
Mission Support Alliance provides Hanford emergency response and training services through the Hanford Fire Department and Hanford Patrol. It is responsible for land management; fleet and road maintenance; water, electric, and other utilities; and cybersecurity and information management. It also provides Hanford portfolio management services, collecting and organizing data to help DOE plan and sequence cleanup of the former plutonium production complex.
In its fee determination scorecard for the budget year ended Sept. 30, 2017, DOE cited eight areas of significant achievement for MSA and three areas where improvements were needed. “There were no significant deficiencies,” the scorecard said.
The contractor needs to address vehicle safety, both for commercial and construction vehicles, DOE stated. While the agency did not release the number of accidents in fiscal 2017, it said the count spiked as miles driven increased. “This has been a persistent issue from previous years, and corrective actions from previous events have not been fully effective,” according to the scorecard.
A departmental audit of MSA’s quality assurance for software used across the site showed the contractor needed to make improvements to meet DOE requirements, the department said. The scorecard also criticized the quality of MSA regulatory documents, noting the Washington state Department of Ecology had rejected a sewer operation plan for part of central Hanford based on the plan’s quality.
On the positive side, the Hanford Fire Department did an “exceptional job during an extreme fire season,” the scorecard said. It battled 20 wildlife fires, including one that jumped Highway 240, the main highway along the former plutonium production area of Hanford. Firefighters kept the fire from encroaching on the 200 West Area.
Mission Support Alliance also earned praise for its response to the May collapse of a PUREX Plant waste storage tunnel. It activated the site emergency operations center in a timely fashion and ran it efficiently, the scorecard said.
The contractor improved the site-wide Contractor Assurance System, a comprehensive program used to help management understand performance trends and focus contractor resources on issue resolution. It includes a formal process for sharing best practices on a wide range of issues, from safety to financial reporting. Improvements made in the Contractor Assurance System included new tools to measure the effectiveness of management assessments, issues management, and quality assurance audits.
The scorecard praised MSA’s support of the Tri-Party Agreement five-year review and its development of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) five-year report.
The Tri-Party Agreement provides for a review every five years to provide a general assessment of how the agreement is performing.
The five-year mandatory CERCLA review evaluates the implementation and performance of cleanup remedies to determine whether they are – or will be – protective of human health and the environment. The CERCLA report came in under budget and received Environmental Protection Agency concurrence with no further changes.
Other accomplishments included solid budget management, particularly in planning for the protracted continuing resolution in fiscal 2017; a strong performance in conduct of operations, business relations, and site infrastructure; and managing costs of increased services. The past winter was unusually severe and required more snow removal and road clearing. MSA also has been called on to fill more air bottles for supplied air respirators used by other contractors. It is filling more than 80,000 bottles a year, up from 8,000 four years ago, the scorecard said.
Mission Support Alliance holds a 10-year contract valued at about $3 billion that expires in May 2019. Leidos owns 88 percent of MSA, with Centerra Group owning the remainder.
