Hanford contractor earns $5.5 million in annual incentive pay during pandemic

Bechtel National earned $5.5 million for its work in 2020 to prepare the massive Hanford vitrification plant to start treating radioactive waste.

The Department of Energy gave the contractor its best performance evaluation in four years.

It also is the second highest award Bechtel has received at Hanford, said Valerie McCain, Bechtel project director for the vitrification plant, in a message to employees on Monday.

The $5.5 million in incentive pay, or “fee,” was 70% of the maximum $7.9 million available.

For the previous year Bechtel earned about $5 million, or 64% of the pay available. In both of the two years before that the nuclear reservation contractor earned just 48% of available pay.

Bechtel also is eligible for some additional pay as it meets deadlines outlined in its DOE contract for completing certain work, with Monday’s DOE announcement covering only DOE’s subjective evaluation for the past year.

The achievements that earned the pay announced Monday would be impressive in any year, but were especially impressive in 2020, McCain said.

“Under unexpected and unprecedented conditions caused by the pandemic, the team swiftly shifted and adapted to new ways of working and interfacing with one another,” she said.

Employees continued to make progress on constructing and preparing to operate the plant, while many also were dealing with challenging personal circumstances, McCain said.

DOE praised Bechtel for its management and the actions it took to reduce on-site staffing and protect workers during the pandemic.

Good to excellent

DOE rated Bechtel in six categories, with Bechtel receiving four ratings of “good,” one rating of “very good” and one rating of “excellent.”

Its pay ranged from earning just 61% of the $2 million available for overall project performance to 92% of the $400,000 available for work on the plant’s High Level Waste Facility.

Most of the current focus has been on preparing the plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility to operate, rather than parts of the plant that will handle high level waste.

Bechtel completed work to allow DOE to meet a federal court deadline to have construction completed on the vitrification plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility and Effluent Management Facility by the end of 2020, DOE said in a scorecard released to summarize its evaluation.

Bechtel also improved the effectiveness and processes for startup testing of the vitrification plant, the step between completing construction and commissioning the plant.

It pulled ahead of schedule for work on environmental permits due in 2020 and obtained approval for a chemical safety management program and a nuclear material maintenance program.

It also completed design reviews for the High Level Waste Facility ahead of schedule.

DOE called out four areas needing improvement.

Continued improvements are needed in the plant’s program to measure performance and progress against the plant’s schedule, it said.

Bechtel also needs to make its program to identify and manage possible risks more effective.

It also needs to continue to find and resolve any issues with key parts of the plant that could impact smooth operations, DOE said.

As Bechtel continues to work on having the plant operating by as soon as the end of 2023, it needs to continue to evolve the mindset of employees from construction to continuous operation of the plant, DOE said.

The Hanford nuclear reservation produced plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War, leaving 56 million gallons of radioactive waste in underground tanks.

The vitrification plant, or Waste Treatment Plant, will turn much of that waste into a stable glass form for disposal.

Bechtel began building the $17 billion Hanford vitrification plant in 2002 and is preparing it to start treating low activity radioactive waste by the end of 2023.

The plant must be fully operational, including treating high level radioactive waste, by 2036, under a federal court order.