Hanford Ripoff Back on Schedule

On April 13th, the DOE Office of Environmental Management issued a press release which begins

Cincinnati – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) awarded the Hanford Integrated Tank Disposition Contract (ITDC) to Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure, LLC (H2C) of Lynchburg, Virginia, for work to be performed at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State.

H2C is a newly formed limited liability company made up of BWXT Technical Services Group, Inc. (BWXT TSG), Amentum Environment & Energy, Inc. (Amentum), and Fluor Federal Services, Inc. (FFS). H2C’s Teaming Subcontractors include DBD, Inc., DSS Sustainable Solutions USA, Inc., INTERA Incorporated, and Longenecker & Associates, Inc. The Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contract will have a maximum value of $45 billion over a 10-year ordering period.

This shows commendable progress. The DOE was falling well behind its goal of spending a half-trillion dollars at Hanford over the next 50 years, moving mostly Low Level Waste from one place to another, with negligible impact on ambient dose rates that are already almost all below natural background dose rates on a large part of the planet.

At the old burn rate of 2.5 billion USD a year, that would take 200 years, by which time there will be hardly any photons left to worry about. The new burn rate still leaves the DOE well short of the goal; but fortunately this is an Indefinite Quantity contract which should leave plenty of room to spend more money. And since just about all the potential pigs have formed a sounder to feed together, it should be easy to draft the follow-on contract.

I find it quite remarkable that a 45 billion dollar contract can be awarded uncompetitively with so little publicity. Strangely the nuclear industry press made little of this bonanza. Even the local outlets in the Hanford area covered it in a low key manner. It is a tribute to the power of the Catastrophic Harm Lie that none of the taxpayer watchdog groups have challenged this blatant waste of resources. Where are the anti-nukes when you need them?