03/17/2006

By SHANNON DININNY  / Associated Press

The company building a massive waste-treatment plant at the Hanford nuclear reservation — a project mired in cost overruns and delays — is being fined $198,000 for violating nuclear safety requirements, the Department of Energy announced Thursday.

The fine is the latest in a series of problems with the project that has subjected both contractor Bechtel National and the Energy Department to heated criticism in recent months.

The vitrification plant, billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, will convert millions of gallons of radioactive waste into glasslike logs for permanent disposal. The waste now is stored in leaking underground tanks near the Columbia River.

The plant has long been considered the cornerstone of cleanup at the highly contaminated Hanford site, which was created in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb.

The preliminary notice of violation announced Thursday targets problems that occurred during design and construction between May 2002 and September 2005. Violations include failure to abide by design codes for building safety requirements, failure to abide by inspection requirements for waste-processing tanks, failure to use correct suppliers to build certain parts and calculation errors resulting in inconsistencies in structural steel design requirements, the Energy Department said in a news release.

If left uncorrected, the problems could have adversely affected operation of the plant, compromising its ability to process radioactive waste and "posing potential safety and health risks to workers and the public," the release said.

The company could have been fined up to $330,000. The proposed $198,000 penalty reflects both the "significance of the violations" and Bechtel National's efforts to prevent recurrence, the release said.

Bechtel identified its own weaknesses — related to quality procedures, adherence to quality procedures, training and communication — and reported them to the federal government, spokesman John Britton said.

A federal review then concluded, Britton said, "We did a good job of finding problems, did a good job of correcting problems once we found them, but they identified problems in our ability to prevent problems from occurring.

"They are all related to our nuclear business. Expectations are high, but that comes with the territory in nuclear work," he said.

The company has taken actions to correct the problems, Britton said.

Once completed, the vitrification plant will stand 12 stories tall and be the size of four football fields. However, building the one-of-a-kind plant has proven to be more difficult than originally thought.

The operating deadline has been pushed back four times from the original plan for a 1999 startup. The latest delay resulted from a seismic review, which found that the Energy Department had underestimated the impact a severe earthquake might have on the plant, as well as construction problems and the rising price of materials.

The Energy Department recently estimated the plant would not begin treating waste until 2017 and would cost more than $10 billion. A more detailed cost and schedule estimate is expected to be completed this summer.

The contract stood at $4.3 billion when it was awarded to Bechtel National in 2000. This is the first fine assessed to Bechtel for the project; however, the company has had $800,000 docked from its fee for safety and quality problems.

Congress recently questioned the Energy Department's management of the project, raising concerns that money for the plant could be cut. Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire has threatened to sue if the full construction budget is not met.

Hanford watchdog groups also criticized the Energy Department following an Associated Press report that found more than $400,000 in bonuses had been paid to federal staffers overseeing the project during the past three years.

Cleaning up the entire 586-square-mile Hanford site is expected to cost $50 billion to $60 billion, with completion by 2035.

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On the Net:

Hanford: http://www.hanford.gov

Bechtel National: http://www.bechtelnational.com