Nuclear Waste

The Department of Energy (DOE) is trying to improve the storage of spent (or irradiated) nuclear fuel from its nuclear reactors at its Hanford site in Washington state. The fuel is now stored in water basins a few hundred yards from the Columbia River, where the deterioration of some of the fuel and the water basins has raised health and safety concerns. DOE has a project underway to address these concerns. In 1988, GAO testified that the project was more than four years behind schedule and that its estimated cost had doubled to $1.4 billion. GAO revisited the project to determine its status, what problems might affect achieving current cost and schedule estimates, and whether changes have addressed management weaknesses. GAO found that although DOE is more confident that the project will eventually remove fuel from the water storage basins, uncertainty remains over when the project will be finished and how much it will cost.

GAO noted that: (1) although DOE has increased confidence that the project eventually will begin to remove fuel from the water storage basins, uncertainty remains over when the project will be finished and how much it will cost; (2) completion is scheduled for July 2007 at a cost of $1.7 billion--about 6 years and $1 billion beyond the original estimates made in 1995; (3) however, the new completion date includes $133.5 million and about 2 years for work activities not included in the original estimate; (4) compared with conditions that GAO reported on in May of last year, the amount of progress is substantial, with considerable construction completed and equipment installation under way; (5) since the schedule was established in December 1998, the estimated date for completing safety documentation has slipped, operational readiness issues have become major challenges, and most of the extra time built into the schedule for addressing contingencies has already been used up; (6) DOE's contractors have addressed the three main problems that existed earlier in the project--an unrealistic schedule, poor control over the project's baseline, and unresolved technical issues--but still have several matters to resolve before being able to provide assurance that cost and schedule estimates can be met; (7) the time required to reassess the procedures for removing loaded fuel-shipping casks from the basins and the compressed schedule to complete safety documentation and pass readiness reviews place in jeopardy a project milestone to begin removing fuel from the first storage basin by November 2000; (8) to process the fuel within the project's completion dates and cost targets, DOE and its contractors must ensure the reliability of complex one-of-a-kind equipment that has not yet been operated as a system; (9) DOE's contractor must also overcome challenges in hiring operations staff and in processing the spent fuel at a rate that can meet the project's milestones; (10) corrective actions have addressed some but not all of the management weaknesses on the project; and (11) although DOE's contractor responsible for overall management of the Hanford Site has consolidated its control over the project and made other changes to strengthen the project's performance, it has been slow to address problems with safety documentation and quality assurance.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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