RICHLAND – An accelerated plan being pushed by the U.S. Department of Energy to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation is not compatible with controlling costs and schedules for highly complex construction projects, according to a new report.
The report from the Government Accountability Office specifically criticized the Energy Department’s fast-track approach to building Hanford’s vitrification plant, which will turn radioactive waste into glass logs for permanent disposal.
Construction on the plant was required to begin by July 2001. Under pressure to meet that deadline, the Energy Department set its contract price for the project at the end of 2000 with the design less than 15 percent complete.
Construction is under way even as design and technology development work are continuing.
That lack of planning will lead to problems ranging from construction delays to increased operating expenses later, the report said Friday.
Plant construction was estimated at $4.35 billion before the contract was awarded in 2000. The current estimate is close to $5.7 billion, an increase of more than 30 percent.
The Energy Department said it could reduce the time needed to treat Hanford tank waste by 20 years under an accelerated cleanup plan and reduce the total $56 billion cost to clean up Hanford by $20 billion.
But the $20 billion cost savings was overstated, and the savings likely will be closer to $12 billion, the report said.
Another uncertainty about the cleanup stems from a lawsuit, now on appeal, that could require the Energy Department to dispose of a majority of its tank waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The report concluded the agency has not adequately defined the potential effects that the legal challenge might have on its overall plan for high-level waste disposal.
“Unless effectively managed, an adverse legal outcome could increase project costs by tens of billions of dollars,” the report said.
The General Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, recommended that the Energy Department avoid fast-track cleanup approaches with concurrent design on complex projects.
The report also asked the agency to provide Congress with a plan for treating and disposing of waste if the Energy Department loses the current lawsuit.
For 40 years, the Hanford reservation made plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Today, work centers on a $50 billion to $60 billion cleanup, to be finished by 2035.
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