Mission Support Alliance (MSA) has been awarded its largest fee since it began providing site-wide services at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in 2009.
The DOE scorecard for fiscal 2018, released Thursday, showed Mission Support Alliance took home almost $21 million of the potential $22.2 million for its work at the DOE cleanup site in Washington state. That is 94 percent, the same percentage of fee it earned for fiscal 2017, but in the previous year less money was available. In fiscal 2017, it was awarded almost $20.4 million of the available $21.7 million.
“I am pleased with the progress attained this past fiscal year,” said Doug Shoop, DOE Richland Operations Office manager, according to a memo sent to MSA workers by company management. “I look forward to working with MSA in continuing to right-size the Hanford Site infrastructure, improving site-wide safety, and overall, driving for safe and cost effective cleanup,” Shoop said.
Mission Support Alliance, owned by Leidos and Centerra Group, holds a 10-year, $3 billion contract through May 2019 to provide site-wide services at Hanford. Its responsibilities include security, emergency response, fleet and road maintenance, utilities, information technology, and portfolio management, which helps the Department of Energy make informed decisions on work across all contracts at the site.
The contractor met or exceeded the majority of performance goals and objectives for the federal budget year that ended Oct. 1, 2018, according to the DOE scorecard. “MSA continued to provide other Hanford contractors with excellent support in the area of environmental management,” the performance evaluation says.
The Energy Department praised MSA for its facility information management system, which includes information for specific facilities, including maintenance and inspections schedules. The system has now been adopted for use across the DOE complex. The agency also liked MSA’s new web-based stewardship information system and web map application for areas of Hanford where cleanup has been completed, but environmental surveillance continues. The system has been “widely lauded” by Richland Operations Office and contractor officials, DOE said.
Mission Support Alliance coordinates efforts for traffic safety, and DOE said its work was leading to long-lasting improvements in traffic safety, risk reduction, and accident prevention. The company planned and is launching a traffic safety initiative that includes worker education and safe-driver training, plus assessments of where engineered improvements could be made. Those could include better pedestrian markings in parking lots and blinking, lighted signs that show up in the fog of Eastern Washington state.
The Hanford Fire Marshal’s Office exceeded fire protection requirements in its contract, implementing additional programs to improve fire prevention, the scorecard says.
Although DOE found no significant deficiencies for fiscal 2018, it did find several areas where improvements are needed.
Improvements to the South Area Fire Station were delayed because MSA did not complete appropriate National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) studies. “MSA’s NEPA compliance and process for conducting NEPA studies needs improvement,” the scorecard said.
The contractor also faced some safety issues. It had eight reportable events involving failures of its lock-and-tag system, which ensures that electrical systems are off, locked, and tagged during maintenance or related activities. They included an electric shock and a severed electrical line, “revealing significant weaknesses in work planning that could have resulted in personnel injury and property damage,” the scorecard said.
In another event, “jumper” piping used to link two pieces of pipe for a pressure test failed, releasing a pressurized spray of water with the potential to injure a worker or damage property. Mission Support Alliance also had some inadequate fall protection controls at construction sites, the scorecard said.
The safeguards and security branch of Mission Support Alliance has accumulated 1.1 million safe work hours without a lost workday injury, the Department of Energy announced Tuesday.
The safeguards and security team includes the Hanford Patrol and other security operations, security analysis, and safeguards across the Hanford Site.
Employees participate in extensive protective force training, performance testing of personnel, maintenance and testing of security systems, and inventories of material in hazardous environments, according to DOE. “This is a major accomplishment considering some of the high-risk activities our men and women perform,” said Corey Low, director of security, emergency services, and information management for the DOE Richland Operations Office.
