ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The U.S. Energy Department’s top official at the Hanford Site in Washington state has a full plate these days.
That includes preparing for potential turnover of four top contractors and gearing up for operation of the $17 billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) by 2023, Brian Vance, who manages both the Hanford Office of River Protection and the Richland Operations Office, said during a Sept. 12 presentation at DOE’s National Cleanup Workshop.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management issued its latest procurement schedule in May. At the time, the nuclear cleanup office said it could issue four Hanford contracts, each potentially worth $1 billion or more, by the end of November. However, incumbents for two of the major contracts – management of radioactive tank waste and Central Plateau remediation – have since been extended as far out as September 2020. Another contractor has received a shorter extension.
The contracts are:
- An award worth up to $6 billion for the Hanford Mission Essential Services Contract, now held by Leidos-led Mission Support Alliance, which in March received an extension to Nov. 25. The contract covers various site-wide support operations, ranging from managing the vehicle fleet to electric utilities and landlord-type services.
- Up to $15 billion for the Tank Closure Contract. The incumbent is AECOM-led Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) for management of roughly 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste in underground tanks.
- A contract worth up to $12 billion for the Central Plateau Cleanup, work now performed by Jacobs subsidiary CH2M, which involves protecting the Columbia River and tearing down the Plutonium Finishing Plant; and
- A potential $1 billion deal to run the 222-S Laboratory, where duties are now split between a Veolia subsidiary, which provides laboratory analysis and testing of tank wastes, and tank contractor WRPS for maintenance, support services, and other work.
Vance has managed both Hanford offices, with 400 federal employees and 8,000 contract workers and a combined budget of roughly $2.4 billion, following Richland Operations Manager Doug Shoop’s retirement in February.
Top priority at Hanford is completion and operation of the Waste Treatment Plant. In 2000 the Energy Department hired Bechtel to design, build, and commission the plant. The project has faced many challenges, including quality assurance problems that have delayed it by years and driven up costs, the Government Accountability Office noted last year.
Vance informed the Washington state Department of Ecology earlier this month the WTP High-Level Waste Vitrification Facility, and the Pretreatment Facility, might not be ready to handle radioactive waste in 2033 as called for in a 2016 federal court agreement. State and federal officials plan talks on this and other Hanford waste issues this fall.
Vance said the Hanford team is “laser-focused” on starting to vitrify direct feed low-activity waste or DFLAW at WTP by 2023. The WTP will convert much of the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass form for disposal.
That will be a site-wide operation and “once you turn it on, you operate 24/7, 365,” Vance said. The transition from construction to operations will require commitment from thousands of workers at Hanford over the next couple years, he added.
In coming months more and more of vitrification plant facilities will undergo startup and testing, said Bechtel Principal Vice President and WTP Project Director Valerie McCain.
The project is “pushing toward the finish line,” McCain said at the National Cleanup Workshop. Last month, DOE and the Energy Department DOE is the Energy Department. dedicated the 20,000-square-foot, two-story annex that houses the control room for the Low-Activity Waste Facility, she noted.
Construction is largely complete for the LAW Facility, the Analytical Laboratory, and support buildings. The Effluent Management Facility is the last major construction project at the Waste Treatment Plant, McCain said.
Leftover liquids from the vitrification process will be sent to EMF, where excess water is evaporated and transferred to Hanford’s nearby Liquid Effluent Retention Facility (LERF) for storage, according to the Energy Department.
In the past quarter, the WTP team has set the final 40-feet-tall condensate vessels in EMF, and in the fourth quarter workers will the powerhouse, said Bechtel spokeswoman Staci West said in a Thursday email.
Dozens of additional permanent employees are being hired and trained for low-activity waste operations at WTP, McCain said.
