March 23, 2018

Decontamination and Decommissioning Activities at the Separations Process Research Unit

The Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) is a set of inactive radiological facilities located at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna, New York. Constructed in the late 1940s, the SPRU facilities include a former process research building, a waste processing building with an associated waste tank farm, and several interconnecting tunnels. In its September 2007 Action Memorandum, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (Environmental Management) set forth its plan to decontaminate and remove SPRU’s buildings and equipment, dispose of the resulting waste and contaminated soil, and return the areas to the Office of Naval Reactors for continuing mission use. In December 2007, Environmental Management awarded a $67 million cost-plus-incentive-fee task order to URS Energy & Construction, Inc. (contractor) to complete the decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) activities described in the Action Memorandum by November 4, 2011. However, given that the project was still not complete by 2016, we initiated this audit to determine whether the Department was effectively managing the D&D of nuclear facilities at SPRU.

The Department’s management of the SPRU D&D project was not always effective. Despite the Department’s efforts, the project encountered significant challenges that slowed progress and increased the Department’s costs. While it had made significant cleanup progress, as of January 2018, the contractor’s schedule showed that D&D work most likely would continue into July 2018, nearly 7 years beyond the contract’s original target completion date.  Additionally, the contract’s cost to the Department had increased to approximately $180 million through January 2018. These contract costs included additional reimbursed costs for work scope determined to be the responsibility of the Department. We acknowledge a number of factors contributed to the schedule and cost increases, including factors beyond the Department and contractor’s control. Nevertheless, we believe that there may be lessons to be learned from the various events that challenged the Department’s management of the project and have made recommendations to that effect.

Due to the lagging schedule, the Department estimated that it could incur nearly $18 million in additional direct costs to oversee the project, as compared to the original project baseline.  Further, the Department will incur long-term storage costs for the site’s transuranic waste.  Management concurred with the report’s recommendations and indicated that corrective actions are planned to address the issues identified in the report.

Topic: Environmental  Cleanup