OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) cleanup contractor URS | CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) earned almost $3.3 million for its performance from April through September 2017, nearly 87 percent of the total award fee available for the evaluation period.
OREM recently issued its for UCOR. EM releases information relating to contractor fee payments - earned by completing the work called for in the contracts - to further transparency in its cleanup program.
According to the UCOR scorecard and OREM’s correspondence to the contractor:
UCOR received the following ratings: “excellent" for project management and business systems; “good" for work planning and control, worker safety, health, and quality management; “excellent" for environmental protection; and “high confidence" for cost and schedule.
The contractor executed its scope under the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) contract very well and advanced multiple projects for Vision 2020, OREM’s goal to complete ETTP cleanup in 2020 and transfer the site to the private sector for development.
UCOR achieved criticality incredible in a portion of ETTP, resulting in significant cost savings by eliminating quarterly surveillance and maintenance of the Radioactive Criticality Accident Alarm System.
The contractor has operated 30 months without a letter of non-compliance from regulatory agencies, and 69 months without a reportable spill or release. Regulators conducted 300 visits and inspections at UCOR projects and identified no violations during fiscal year 2017 - a significant achievement.
OREM detailed areas of improvement for UCOR after identifying issues with work planning and control, use of human capital resources, crane operations, hazard awareness, and transportation safety.
UCOR experienced two instances when heavy equipment contacted tie lines, which was attributed to a lack of qualified spotters. Corrective actions for those issues were not uniformly deployed. In other events, the cable of a 110-ton crane sustained unexplained damage and needed to be replaced, and a 50-ton crane computer continued to have functionality issues. OREM recommended UCOR improve its crane operations.
UCOR also failed to conduct required preventative maintenance on the White Oak Dam, resulting in the dam gates being inoperable for an extended period.
View the scorecard.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
