Nuclear Waste

Defense Waste Processing Facility--Cost, Schedule, and Technical Issues Gao ID: RCED-92-183 June 17, 1992

Since the early 1980s, the Department of Energy (DOE) has been planning or building facilities to treat and dispose of 34 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste stored in underground tanks at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The program has experienced cost increases and is now expected to cost nearly $4 billion and run about five years behind schedule. Further cost increases and schedule delays are possible because of technical issues and other uncertainties. Much of the cost increases and schedule slippages resulted from ineffective program management. In addition, because of the way in which DOE reported funding and budget information about the program in the past, Congress did not have a clear picture of the cost increases and schedule slippages. DOE has taken steps to correct these problems. Two key pretreatment processes continue to be plagued by technical problems. At the same time, an alternative pretreatment method with lower operating costs has become available, raising questions about which pretreatment technology can come online quickest and offer environmental, safety, performance, and cost advantages. GAO recommends that DOE assess and compare the existing and alternative pretreatment technologies to see whether DOE should accelerate its planned efforts to replace the existing technology.

GAO found that: (1) the DWPF program has experienced cost increases and is behind schedule, which is due in large part to ineffective management; (2) the supporting facilities critical to DWPF operation are experiencing similar problems; (3) the Department of Energy (DOE) focused on management problems in its reviews and assessments in 1991 and has since attempted to improve the situation; (4) because of current and potential technical problems, further cost and schedule changes are possible; (5) the two critical DWPF pretreatment processes continue to have problems and, although DOE is acting on the situation, a more thorough investigation is needed; and (6) since 1989, DOE has not presented Congress with adequate information on the DWPF program's cost increases and schedule slippages, but has plans underway to provide the information in the future.

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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