KENNEWICK — The Hanford tank farm contractor will be allowed to keep most of $6 million that the federal government had ordered it to repay, saying some workers were overpaid or unqualified.
But the contractor convinced a panel of judges that the Department of Energy order regarding workers employed through subcontractors was mostly wrong.
Three judges for the U.S. Civilian Board of Contract Appeals have ruled that Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) must only repay $80,275 plus interest to DOE. WRPS is owned by Amentum and Atkins.
WRPS has held a DOE contract since 2008 to do environmental cleanup work at the Hanford nuclear reservation site in Eastern Washington. DOE reimburses its costs, provided they are reasonable.
An audit done by DOE Hanford officials questioned the payments DOE was making for staff augmentation, or workers it employs through subcontractors to work alongside those it employs directly.
Staff augmentation contracts are intended to allow employees to be hired quickly without WRPS incurring training or separation costs for a full-time employee. Those costs are estimated at $28,000 to $38,000 per worker.
The staff augmentation is intended for specific tasks or to temporarily fill in for an employee on leave — jobs that might be difficult to otherwise hire a full-time employee, according to documents in the case.
WRPS spent 9% of its staffing dollars in the first decade of its contract on staff augmentation.
DOE told WRPS in February 2020 that it must repay $6 million it had received for staff augmentation after an audit concluded some workers were paid at “inappropriately high rates” and that DOE had not made sure some workers were qualified.
It said DOE should have made sure it staff augmentation was less costly than directly hiring a permanent employee.
WRPS appealed to the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, which ruled at the end of June. Redacted documents were made public this week.
“I believe this successful outcome reflects our core values and commitment to doing the right thing for our customers and all stakeholders,” said WRPS President Wes Bryan in a message to staff before legal documents were made public.
Worker pay, qualifications
DOE’s audit focused on 41 workers hired for staff augmentation who held temporary positions for three or more consecutive years and then narrowed its focus to 13 individuals. To reach the $6 million it wanted WRPS to pay back, it doubled the amount of estimated costs for select workers it found to be unreasonable.
DOE said the hourly rates paid to seven individuals was more than they would have been paid if they worked directly for WRPS.
The board found that some of them had more than 30 years of experience, but that WRPS pay rates were capped at 10 years of experience. Six of them possessed specific technical skills and experience with tank farm operations that WRPS needed.
In some cases, the highly paid workers were not full-time.
“WRPS has established that these individuals were hired on an as-needed basis and that it would have incurred additional costs if these individuals had been hired as full-time employees,” the board decision said.
In addition, two of the workers received hourly rate increases that DOE said were unreasonable. The hourly pay for one worker was raised from $101 to $163 in 2018, although the work required of her did not change.
The worker had owned her own subcontracting company and kept overhead low. But after she disbanded it, DOE had to hire her at a higher cost through a different subcontractor, according to the board’s decision.
“WRPS sought to fill specialized requirements with individuals with extensive experience in the difficult world of nuclear waste management,” according to the board’s decision.
Three workers received pay that exceeded costs negotiated in subcontracts that allowed companies to supply staff augmentation workers, DOE said.
But the board decision said all were employees that WRPS requested by name because they had specific experience that WRPS needed.
In one instance, the worker was an expert in computer applications needed for tank farm operations. Another had knowledge of the vitrification plant and its construction.
The $80,275 that WRPS must repay was for a worker who it did not show to the board’s satisfaction was qualified. WRPS did not show that a computer-aided design drafter had a technical degree when he started doing work at WRPS.
The 580-square-mile Hanford site adjacent to Richland produced nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.
The work left 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste stored in underground tanks, some of them prone to leaking. DOE expects to start turning some of the least radioactive waste into a stable glass form at the vitrification plant after plant commissioning is competed by late 2024 or 2025.
WRPS manages the tank waste, including emptying waste in leak-prone tanks into newer double shell tanks, and pretreating some of the waste to prepare it for vitrification.
