HENDERSON, Nev. – Parsons Senior Vice President Frank Sheppard Jr. expressed confidence Thursday the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina will start operation in 2019.
“We are going to start up next year,” Sheppard said during a panel presentation on tank waste at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste Summit. He emphasized the same message in a subsequent conversation with Weapons Complex Monitor.
Parsons and DOE are working on a new arrangement after the company indicated it wouldn’t meet a December 2018 target to start operations. The SWPF had originally been scheduled to complete startup in late 2015. Construction was completed in mid-2016.
Sheppard declined to be more specific about the beginning of operations, saying “it’s a negotiation process” and will be affected by what date DOE wants to target. The contractor expects to receive a safety evaluation report this month from the Energy Department prior to the two parties setting up a new baseline for the project’s schedule, the official said after his presentation.
The company will also submit a new cost proposal to DOE within a couple weeks, said Sheppard, project manager for the SWPF. The SPWF cost $2.3 billion to build.
Parsons submitted its documented safety analysis this summer for the federal agency’s review. The DOE is expected to approve the document and Parsons would make any needed changes in its safety plan for the facility.
The SWPF is designed to process more than 6 million gallons per year of radioactive waste currently stored in tanks at SRS. “We are going to process more than 90 percent of the tank volume waste,” Sheppard said. The SRS salt waste is leftover from Cold War nuclear weapons operations.
Earlier this year, the agency issued a notice of concern letter that suggested Parsons had underperformed in areas such as employee management and correcting problems quickly. Parsons pushed back against the DOE criticism, saying its $2 billion contract with the government calls for testing and commissioning during the first quarter of 2019, with operation expected by June 2019.
“Our best-case scenario was to start up in December 2018,” Sheppard said. “That didn’t include any sort of risk profile [considerations],” he said after the presentation. The two parties now are weighing various risk factors, which will lead them to realign the contract and the baseline for cost and schedule impacts.
Parsons is finishing up a key maintenance issue at the plant, having replaced 448 of 460 problem valve controller devices, Sheppard said in his presentation.
Parsons will run the SWPF for its first year of operation, after which the facility will be integrated into the SRS liquid waste contract, “whenever it’s announced,” Sheppard said. The Energy Department could announce that contract award this month.
“Not only is the facility ready, the people are ready as well,” Sheppard said. People are being trained to run the facility now, he added.
