Facing Tight Funding, Site Looks at Balancing Progress Toward D&D
Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
11/21/2014
Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, responsible for the Portsmouth D&D project, is awaiting the next step from Congress to see if it can avoid hundreds of layoffs next month, officials said this week. Despite facing a funding shortfall of $110 million at the start of the Fiscal Year 2015 and plans for up to 675 layoffs, the D&D project so far has been able to stave off workforce reductions under the Continuing Resolution funding the government through Dec. 11. The site is hoping Congress will soon pass an omnibus spending package or long-term CR for the remainder of the fiscal year that includes the additional cleanup funds, but another short-term CR could mean layoffs on Dec. 12. “I don’t have a crystal ball, so right now I’m on pins and needles just waiting to see what occurs,” FBP Site Project Director Dennis Carr told WC Monitor this week.
The significant funding shortfall at the Portsmouth D&D project is due in part to a drop in the price of uranium, which DOE has provided FBP to help fund cleanup activities. In addition, DOE has announced plans to reduce the amount of excess uranium to be made available to help fund cleanup activities. The current CR language allows DOE to spend available Portsmouth funding from later in the year upfront to avoid immediate layoffs, a position that won’t be sustainable in the long term and will, in fact, exacerbate the funding situation should a higher funding level not be approved for the remainder of the fiscal year.
House and Senate appropriators are currently working on an omnibus spending package for the remainder of the fiscal year, but whether it will pass remains to be seen, as well as if it will contain the increased funding for Portsmouth. Lawmakers have been notified of the funding needs at Portsmouth, DOE Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office Deputy Manager Robert Edwards said this week at the Energy Technology and Environmental Business Association conference in Knoxville, Tenn. “We have made our needs known as far as our funding moving forward after December 11 and we await that funding decision and that will determine what happens on December 12,” Edwards said.
But in the case of a short-term CR, DOE and FBP may work together to see if immediate layoffs could be avoided, Carr said. “A very tough decision will have to be made if Congress decides to continue the current condition. We are going to have to sit down with the Department and talk this one out and make the best possible decision we can,” Carr said. He added: “For us, we would be going deeper and deeper into the hole if we are going to be maintaining the same funding profile. If we are expected to be held to the president’s request level for the year, we are currently burning it at a level with a staffing profile that significantly exceeds that. We are watching that really closely and I want to minimize as much as possible the impacts on this project and on this workforce.”
FBP Bringing ‘Three Pretty Complicated Tasks Together’
Meanwhile, the site is progressing towards Records of Decision on cleanup and disposal of waste at Portsmouth. Officials held a public meeting this week on the proposed cleanup plans, which include an on-site disposal cell as the preferred alternative. DOE, the contractor and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency are moving ahead with making the regulatory decisions, and Carr said that he hopes the ROD will be signed in May.
In parallel, Portsmouth is working to get design and documentation in order for the onsite disposal cell so that construction work can begin if the final ROD includes on-site disposal. Secondly, soil from contaminated areas on site will be used as fill material around demo waste placed in the cell, and FBP and DOE are working to get regulatory documentation in place for excavation of soils from the existing landfills and a contaminated groundwater plume. The cell and fill soils will need to be ready before major D&D work begins to ensure a site for waste disposal. At the same time, deactivation work continues at the X-326 building, which will be the first in line for major demo work. “What we are attempting to do is bring those three pretty complicated tasks together so that we can begin placement in the ’17, early ’18 time period based on funding,” Carr said.
Funding Pushes Back Demo Work
However, given that the pace of progress is “highly dependent” on funding, FBP no longer expects to meet a goal to have the building demolition-ready by March 2016. “At this moment we can no longer accomplish that based upon the funding,” Carr said. “I don’t like giving away a day getting to cold and dark status on 326 building, but obviously we can only do what we’re funded to do.”
FBP hopes to complete process gas equipment removal this year, but still needs to do non-destructive analysis on the facility’s piping systems. “We’ve begun that work, but we cannot progress at the pace we wanted to progress on that,” Carr said. “We wanted to have a separate crew going at it in parallel with the process gas equipment removal, but since we really can’t do that based on the funding profile we are continuing our process gas equipment.”
Meanwhile, excavation of the on-site disposal facility could begin as early as August 2015. Carr emphasized the cost advantages of using contaminated fill soil from the site in the landfill, which will reduce long-term liabilities for treating groundwater and costs for fill material that would otherwise need to be purchased. “It’s about all for one. It’s all about a balance for everyone. From an Ohio EPA standpoint, they get useful resources back to the state of Ohio, they get a much cleaner remedy as a result of the consolidation of the landfills and the plumes, the Department gets a cost-effective, safe and more implementable solution, and in the end they get to cut off some long-term liabilities associated with pump and treat that could have gone on forever, and they get to reduce their long-term risk associated with the care and maintenance of the landfills,” Carr said. “The public, they get a complete remedy, and from removing the landfills and the plumes they get a real possibility of reindustrialization of the current footprint of the cascades.”
‘The Goal is Very Clear’
But Carr stressed that the schedule will all come down to funding. “The goal is very clear. All of our tasks are laid out. We know what we have got to do. There is not any R&D in front of us. To make this happen it’s simply a matter of resources,” Carr said. “We’re working on a proposal for the option period now which would bring us to completion of the 326 facility based on the funding profile. We’ll get it done as quickly and as safely as we can.”
