Hanford Waste Treatment Plant Contractor Earns 95% of Available Fee in 2024

RICHLAND, Wash. — The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (EM) Hanford Field Office awarded Hanford Site Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) contractor Bechtel National Inc. (BNI) approximately $14.2 million, or about 95% of the available fee for work performed last year.

EM releases information relating to contractor fee payments — earned by completing the work called for in their contracts — to further transparency in its cleanup program.

EM evaluated BNI’s performance against seven subjective fee criteria. According to the award fee determination scorecard, BNI’s performance was “excellent” in three areas associated with the High-Level Waste (HLW) Facility. Noteworthy activities in these areas include:

• Demonstrating a strong commitment to completing the HLW design by 2027 with an emphasis on an integrated “system of systems” focus and an operations centric design approach;
• Implementing over 500 lessons learned into the HLW project from a variety of complex projects to reduce risk; and
• Leading a cross-contractor team to establish the HLW waste acceptance criteria range and integrated process to establish the point of compliance.

Areas for improvement in BNI’s performance include:

• Construction oversight and execution of safety training of new workforce;
• Work to establish early mock-up functional improved troubleshooting and testing of components and systems integrated testing to reduce risk of redesign; and
• Timeliness of construction material awards and resolution of field changes to support schedule achievement for planned construction activities.