Quality assurance problems continue to afflict the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) being built at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Tuesday.
Some of the same quality assurance issues previously identified during a 2012 partial suspension of construction of the facility and a 2014 managed improvement plan (MIP) continue today, the GAO said in a report.
For example, DOE oversight has not ensured the contractor has identified quality assurance problems in structures, systems, and components installed by 2012, according to the GAO report. Likewise, not all quality assurance issues in newer installations, needed for initial WTP startup, have been identified.
Quality assurance problems have contributed to the “persistent challenges” that have slowed progress on the facility by decades and spiked its price tag by threefold, to almost $17 billion, the GAO said in its report summary.
Lingering quality assurance issues cited in the report include engineering errors, construction problems, and procuring products that might not meet DOE standards. The recurring errors could require “significant rework” at the facility, according to the GAO.
The WTP is a first-of-its-kind facility designed to convert into glass up to 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste stored at Hanford following decades of plutonium production. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2016 directed the GAO to evaluate the project being led by contractor Bechtel.
The plant is the largest construction project overseen by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, taking up 65 acres of the Hanford Site. As the facility’s owner, the agency is responsible for assuring quality and has the authority to suspend work there if necessary.
In 2012, DOE suspended work at the WTP Pretreatment Facility and partially on its High-Level Waste Facility, the GAO noted. The Energy Department then implemented a phased approach beginning with processing of low-activity waste.
The Government Accountability Office said the Energy Department and the contractor need to determine the extent of problems in WTP systems and structures and stop work when problems recur. The agency also called for DOE’s Office of River Protection (ORP), which oversees waste operations at Hanford, to review its organizational structure in order to protect the independence of the office’s quality assurance division.
The Energy Department and Bechtel are under a federal court mandate that processing of low-activity waste begin by 2023 at the Waste Treatment Plant. Some DOE officials at Hanford believe deadline pressures can affect attention to quality, according to the report.
“For example, two of these experts [GAO spoke with] described instances when ORP upper management had downgraded the division’s findings so that the contractor could take less stringent corrective measures,” the GAO said. The specific findings were not identified.
An improved organizational structure at ORP could help ensure that quality doesn’t take a back seat to cost and construction schedules, according to the report.
Three ORP quality assurance experts, interviewed by GAO, said some components of the Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) system at the plant might fail to work properly because problems have not been sufficiently addressed. Current DOE plans call for moving some low-activity waste from the tanks to the WTP’s LAW facility for vitrification before the Pretreatment Facility is completed.
The report notes ORP has taken actions aimed at improving quality assurance, but these have not always been successful. For example, Bechtel has not fully implemented fixes ORP recommended in 2012 for engineering, procurement, and construction issues.
The Office of River Protection implemented its managed improvement plan in 2014 to ensure the plant operates within DOE quality and safety requirements. The plan has 52 items focused on “processes, procedures, and metrics” for ensuring quality.
“DOE has taken several actions to identify and address quality assurance problems at WTP,” David Trimble, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment, said by email Thursday “These actions include targeted audits, compensatory measures and implementation of a managed improvement plan.”
However, the GAO review determined 13 measures in the managed improvement plan had not been completed, including nine connected to quality assurance, Trimble added.
The Hanford office’s effort to verify how well fixes have been implemented won’t be finished until at least December 2018.
The Energy Department largely accepted the GAO’s findings, the report says. The agency declined to comment for this article, beyond its formal comments included in the GAO report.
“While DOE states that it believes that the current ORP quality assurance reporting relationship meets all established requirements, it also states that the GAO report identifies instances that indicate that ORP could be strengthened to improve the effectiveness and independence of its quality assurance functions,” according to the GAO.
The Energy Department also said in its formal response to the report many of the issues at WTP are highly complex. Typically, the ORP has thoroughly reviewed these issues and found a work stoppage was not warranted, the agency said in an April 11 letter by Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Anne Marie White. The letter was included in the GAO report.
