[CPEO-MEF] Hanford bonuses paid out despite overruns

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Hanford bonuses paid out despite overruns

By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter

The agency that oversees Hanford's $2 billion-a-year nuclear cleanup
paid contractors bonuses despite delays and millions of dollars in cost
overruns, congressional investigators have found.

Eight years after the Department of Energy vowed to overhaul its
oversight of private contractors, half the projects ? including some at
Hanford ? still are behind schedule and costs are likely to soar,
according to a report from the General Accounting Office.

The audit released this week also found the Department of Energy relaxed
its performance standards for contractors and that private businesses
were paid bonuses that were hard to justify.

The audit, Energy Department financial officials said, ignored the
complexity of cleaning up some of the most contaminated sites on the
planet.

At Hanford, birthplace of the nation's Cold War nuclear-weapons program,
officials said they're doing a better job of overseeing their
contractors than other Energy sites and are quick to penalize companies
when deadlines are missed.

But the environmental risks grow by the day. While officials have
temporarily stabilized Hanford's 177 underground waste tanks, a million
gallons of chemicals and radioactive waste have leaked into the ground,
and much of what remains are in gigantic metal casks already 30 years
past their projected lifespan.

This article can be viewed at:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134539186_hanfordgao20m0.html

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