Parsons has provided quality management at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), with little need for improvement, according to a recent assessment from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Agency officials further concluded the contractor has successfully implemented processes and procedures that fall in line with DOE’s Conduct of Operations for facilities in its complex. They added that Energy Department officials at the South Carolina facility have provided adequate oversight as Parsons prepares the 140,000-square-foot SWPF for operations later this year.
The Conduct of Operations is a detailed document that provides guidelines for how agency sites and their contractors should safely and effectively carry out their missions. The new evaluation from DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments comes after the department on multiple occasions has questioned Parsons’ ability to manage the Salt Waste Processing Facility.
Dated June 2019, the review includes observations made from March 4-7 and again from March 25-28. The Enterprise Assessments office reviewed 13 elements of Parsons’ efforts to begin operations at SWPF, which was built to process millions of gallons of radioactive salt waste stored in more than 30 underground Cold War-era tanks near Aiken, S.C. Once converted into a less harmful form, the waste will be disposed of on-site.
Parsons in 2002 inked a $2 billion deal to design, build, test, and provide a year of operations for the Salt Waste Processing Facility. The goal is to have it running by December. But even if that doesn’t happen, Parsons and DOE say the plant will be operational by the January 2021 deadline set in their contract.
Currently, SWPF is undergoing cold commissioning, in which nonradioactive products are run through the facility to test its performance and efficiency.
