March 17, 2014

SPOTLIGHT ON HANFORD WTP AT HEARINGS BEFORE DNFSB, CONGRESS

By ExchangeMonitor

The Department of Energy’s progress in improving the safety culture and overcoming technical issues at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant is set to take center stage this week, as the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board hits the road on Thursday for an all-day WTP hearing in Washington State near the Hanford site and key DOE officials testify before House appropriators on Wednesday. Earlier this month, the DNFSB signed off the implementation plan DOE issued in response to a formal Board recommendation from last year that called for significant improvements to be made on the WTP project to ensure that workers felt comfortable in raising safety and technical issues. Concerns over the safety culture at the WTP were prompted in the summer of 2010 when a contractor executive on the project alleged he was removed for raising safety issues. The allegations prompted the DNFSB to launch an investigation that lasted almost a year and culminated in the issuing of Recommendation 2011-1, which warned of a flawed safety culture at the WTP that threatened the project’s successful completion and called for “prompt” and “major” improvements to be implemented. This week’s DNFSB hearing will be divided into two panels, the first addressing a number of unresolved technical and design issues at WTP and the second on the status of the response to the safety culture recommendation.

The situation at WTP is also likely to figure prominently in Wednesday’s appropriations hearing, as DOE cleanup chief David Huizenga and DOE Chief Health, Safety and Security Officer Glenn Podonsky are both set to testify. Podonsky’s office issued the results of a second examination of the WTP safety culture earlier this year, finding that a “significant number” of federal and contractor employees at the WTP are reluctant to raise safety or quality concerns. For FY 2013, DOE is seeking $690 million for the Hanford vit plant, a cut of $50 million from its current funding level and significantly less than the $970 million had previously said was necessary for next year to help keep the project on the track for being completed at its current cost of $12.2 billion and current schedule of late 2019. Partially in response to Congress failing to back previous funding plans for the WTP, DOE has begun developing a new baseline for the project that takes into account a projected flat annual funding level of $690 million going forward—a move that could result in new cost-and-schedule increases. The hearing is scheduled for 10 am in Room 2362-B in the Rayburn House Office Building.

Comments are closed.