December 21, 2012

The Management of the Plateau Remediation Contract 

Our review largely substantiated the allegations that CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) had not provided change proposals and performance baselines that met contract and Federal Acquisition Regulation requirements and that the Department of Energy (Department) had not corrected performance issues.  Specifically, CHPRC had not always submitted timely and/or well supported contract change proposals.  Additionally, the Department was not always timely in formally notifying the contractor of needed work scope changes, which contributed to delays in finalizing performance baselines.  As such, the Department could not always effectively measure the contractor’s cost performance.

In response to the draft version of this report, the Office of Environmental Management concurred with the recommendations, but disagreed with several of the conclusions and observations.  Accordingly, we made changes to the report, where we deemed appropriate, and provided several suggested actions to improve contract management.

Topic: Environmental Cleanup