Final Determination Pending
Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
1/9/2015
Nuclear Waste Partnership, the managing contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, has so far only been paid $21,576 out of about $8.2 million in total available fee for Fiscal Year 2014, according to contractor fee information recently posted by the Department of Energy. The fee chart notes that the final fee determination is still pending. NWP is largely paid fee based on the amount of waste emplaced in the WIPP underground, and waste operations were halted less than halfway into FY’14 after a salt truck fire and radiological release in February 2014. The contractor can earn $659 per cubic meter of waste emplaced in excess of 1,050 cubic meters, and has emplaced 32.74 cubic meters above that threshold, according to the fee chart. Additionally, NWP can earn up to $1 million in fee by improving “the infrastructure and overall efficiency of the WIPP mission,” and up to $2.5 million for taking preventative maintenance actions.
In July, DOE announced that it reduced the available fee for NWP by $2 million in connection with the salt truck fire, though the contractor had the ability to earn back about 50 percent of that reduction by implementing corrective actions. The contractor has about $2 million in total award fee available, and so far none of it has been paid to NWP, according to the fee information.
DOE: Level of Fee Available Reduced Due to Incidents
According to a DOE/NWP statement: “The U.S. Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office has taken actions that reduced the level of ‘fee’ available to the Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) for FY14 as a result of the incidents that have happened at WIPP this year. After submission and evaluation of the contractor’s self-assessment, DOE will make a determination on the value of the FY14 fee award.” It adds: “Both the federal and contractor workforce are focused on completing recovery activities and restoring the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant facility to normal operations while also implementing necessary corrective actions and ensuring the health and safety of our workers, the public and the environment.”
DOE’s Accident Investigation Board found numerous issues that contributed to what it deemed a preventable incident regarding the truck fire. Those include a lack of proper maintenance and an inadequate response to the events. DOE reports found that that both DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office and NWP had “failed to identify weaknesses in conduct of operations, maintenance, radiological protection, nuclear safety, emergency management, and safety culture,” and “failed to adequately complete corrective actions from prior assessments to prevent or minimize recurrence,” the AIB said in its report.
