The Department of Energy has likely exceeded its expense estimate for building an Idaho Cleanup Project facility by $181 million, breaching the cost cap of $571 million in the wake of a mishap that shut down the plant during testing in 2012, the DOE Inspector General’s Office said Monday.
The Sodium-Bearing Waste Treatment Facility (SBWTF) was built to process 900,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste stored underground in tanks at the Idaho National Laboratory. Site construction and operations contractor CH2M-WG Idaho in June 2012 began comprehensive performance testing in which the plant treated 90,000 gallons of a nonradioactive substance to demonstrate it was ready to function fully as anticipated, according to the IG’s report. However, a “system pressure event” occurred on June 16, releasing nonhazardous particles and automatically shutting down the facility, which has been closed since for repairs and modifications.
The DOE probe of the situation identified design and operational problems at the plant, and the IG said there were notable faults in the department’s oversight of the beginning of operations. “In particular, we found that the Department moved the work associated with the comprehensive performance test, which demonstrates that the facility would perform its mission … as designed, from the construction phase of the project to the operations phase of the project. This project modification resulted in the Department not performing a rigorous test of the functionality of the facility before construction was declared complete,” acting DOE Inspector General Rickey Hass wrote in a memorandum for Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
A DOE spokesperson said by email Monday the department is focused on the safe initiation of operations at the facility, which is also known as the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit. Modifications made since the event have included installing additional systems to monitor differential pressure within the plant. “DOE is taking a deliberative approach to starting up the IWTU to ensure all technical issues are resolved before beginning radioactive waste treatment operations,” the official said.
The $571 million construction cost limit was set following earlier expense and schedule overruns at the facility, which was originally due to complete its mission by Dec. 31, 2012; CH2M-WG Idaho is responsible for expenses beyond that amount during the building phase, but is to receive full reimbursement for operations costs. However, given the problems with the plant, the IG found the DOE’s expense cap “did not successfully limit the construction costs borne by the taxpayers.” The cost is probably understated by roughly $181 million to date, with more than $40 million in additional spending possible by the time the facility begins operations. “Recasting these ‘operation costs’ as construction costs would breach the approved limit of $571 million,” the IG said.
The department to date has estimated the total cost for site construction and subsequent operations at about $750 million, the spokesperson said. A breakdown of the expenses was not immediately available.
Conducting the comprehensive performance test during construction, as originally planned, could have exposed the facility’s design flaws for correction with funding designated for that phase of work, the IG found. It added that the decision to shift the testing from construction to operations was based on the application of information and experiences from other facilities to show the SBWTF was ready. This was done even though significant differences between the facilities meant the comparison data was inadequate to demonstrate readiness, the report says. A number of project workers also told investigators there was pressure to ensure construction did not exceed the $571 million cap.
“Specifically, we were told that the original comprehensive performance test approach was deemed to be too time-consuming and would jeopardize the schedule and cost limitations for the construction project,” Hass stated.
In response, the DOE spokesperson said the department as of April 2012 had “sufficient confidence that it could complete the cold commissioning process with simulated waste in an expeditious manner and then transition to radioactive operations without incident.”
The effects of the situation stretched beyond the single facility, the IG said: DOE officials said the money required for the repair work meant separate Idaho cleanup projects could not be accelerated. Idaho in January 2015 also fined DOE $648,000 for failing to meet its commitment to close down the sodium-bearing waste tanks.
The spokesperson said the department made “significant progress” during the test phase, including preparing facility operators to “a high level of proficiency” and gleaning key operations data from the testing and simulant runs. Another simulant test will be conducted when the maintenance period ends, and the department intends to begin waste processing by Sept. 30 of this year.
CH2M-WG Idaho declined to comment on the report.
The Inspector General’s Office offered three recommendations intended to address weaknesses identified in the report. The DOE assistant secretary for Environmental Management and director of the Office of Acquisition and Project Management should establish a “lessons learned regarding reliance on scale testing and prior operating experience at other facilities to demonstrate facility readiness to operate at a first-of-a-kind facility,” and study whether changes are needed to the site operational readiness review process for such singular EM projects, the report says. The acquisition and project management chief should also assess DOE Order 413.3B, which covers acquisition of capital assets, and possibly add a commissioning phase – essentially another check of the facility’s readiness to carry out its mission — prior to formally declaring that the criteria for completing the project had been met, the IG added.
In a formal response, DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Monica Regalbuto agreed with the first recommendation but said the existing operational readiness review process is sufficient to ensure “safe facility operations and protection of the environment,” the report says. Paul Bosco, director of the Office of Acquisition and Project Management, similarly argued against adding the commissioning phase, which he said had been considered during development of Order 413.3B.
