The joint venture charged with environmental remediation of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site received all but about $600,000 of its potential performance fee for the first six months of fiscal 2019.
The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) sent the latest performance evaluation for URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) on Monday.
The contractor earned over $4.9 million of a potential $5.6 million for the period from Oct. 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019, according to a letter from Jay Mullis, OREM manager, to Ken Rueter, president and project manager at UCOR. That broke down to over $2.4 million for the project management incentive and slightly more than $2.5 million for the cost and schedule incentive.
The Energy Department overall rated UCOR “very good” for project management, broken down into excellent rankings for project management and business systems and regulatory and stakeholder activity, along with a good rating for operations management. The contractor was given “high confidence” in the cost and schedule category.
“During this six-month performance rating period, UCOR has continued to successfully conduct Environmental Management operations, and efficiently advance and complete cleanup projects that reduced risks at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12),” Mullis wrote.
The letter lists 26 specific accomplishments during the evaluation period, including: stronger worker productivity and cost reduction in teardown of Building K-1037 at the former uranium enrichment complex; support for site preparation for the Mercury Treatment Facility; exceeding the small business subcontracting goal of 65%, for a total of 81.1%; and inspecting close to 20 facilities at Oak Ridge following a nearby earthquake in January 2018, with no damage found
Mullis noted 11 areas for improvement, including: maintenance concerns dating back more than two years regarding gates at White Oak Dam; “incidents involving equipment operation related to consistent application of its work planning and control program”; and ongoing issues connected to electrical safety, lockout/tagout, and respirator use.
UCOR holds a $2.7 billion contract through July 2020 for decontamination, demolition, and other environmental remediation operations at Oak Ridge.
