After laying off of 123 workers in January at the Savannah River Site, Parsons, the Department of Energy facility’s salt waste contractor, laid off an additional 200 workers since February en route to completing construction of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF). Parsons still has a multiyear plan for work at SRS and hopes to be a part of the new liquid waste contract after the current deal expires in 2017.
Parsons joined the Energy Department last week in announcing the SWPF was complete. The facility will separate the highly radioactive cesium and actinides from the salt solution stored in SRS waste storage tanks. The site uses 43 tanks to hold about 36 million gallons of Cold War-era nuclear waste that was a byproduct of weapons production. After completing the separation process, the cesium and actinide waste will be sent to the nearby Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) for final treatment. The remaining decontaminated salt solution will be mixed with grout at the nearby Saltstone facility for disposal on-site.
Parsons employed about 900 workers at Savannah River in July 2015 and reported on June 10 that it currently employs about 500 workers at the site. The workforce has dropped considerably as the need for construction workers diminished and the completion of SWPF drew closer. Frank Sheppard, Parsons vice president and SWPF program manager, said in February that workforce reductions were expected as the work scope changed.
“Our focus will continue to shift from construction to startup and commissioning of the plant, which once operational in 2018, will exponentially increase processing rates at the Savannah River Site tank farms in an effort to empty the site’s high-level radioactive waste tanks,” he said at the time. When asked about future, scheduled layoffs, Sheppard said last week that information concerning further reductions will be communicated to employees before other parties. Parsons told Weapons Complex Monitor on June 8 the testing and commissioning phase of SWPF would require about 300 workers.
With construction complete, Sheppard said on June 10 that Parsons’ current contract covers testing and commissioning SWPF and then operating the facility for one year beginning with a December 2018 startup, assuming the beginning of operations is not delayed. The plant was supposed to start radioactive waste operations in 2015, according to a regulatory deadline in a federal facilities agreement that governs SRS cleanup, signed by South Carolina, DOE, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
When SWPF begins operating, liquid waste processing at the Savannah River Site is expected to jump from 1.5 million gallons a year to about 6 million gallons. Parsons is also expected to offer support services for an additional six months. “We expect our current role to continue into 2021,” Sheppard said.
Sheppard added the company hopes to retain a role “that includes continued operations of the SWPF” in the new liquid waste contract beginning next year. The current liquid waste contract is held by Savannah River Remediation, an LLC run by parent companies AECOM, Bechtel National, CH2M, and BWXT. The contract expires in June 2017. A pre-solicitation event in April included about 90 people from various companies, including Parsons. The Energy Department is expected to release a request for proposals (RFP) by the end of the month. The contract is expected to be worth $6 billion over 10 years.
Meanwhile, Parsons’ existing cost-plus contract to build SWPF will have to be extended beyond its Dec. 31 expiration date so the company can fulfill its obligation to bring the plant online by Dec. 3, 2018. Negotiations on an extension are ongoing, and could wrap up by mid-August or so, Sheppard said June 8. DOE awarded the contract in 2002, at which time the deal was worth $1.7 billion.
