DOE Facilities: Better Prioritization and Life Cycle Cost Analysis Would Improve Disposition Planning
Published: 2015-03-19T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Seventy years of nuclear weapons production and energy research by DOE and its predecessor agencies generated radioactive waste, resulting in thousands of contaminated facilities. Some facilities pose risks to workers near the facilities and to the environment. NNSA, a separately organized agency within DOE, now manages many of these contaminated facilities, and though many are no longer in use, others are still operational. Once NNSA considers these facilities to be nonoperational, they may be eligible for transfer to EM, whose mission includes disposing of contaminated facilities through decontamination and decommissioning. In 2007, EM updated its facility transfer process, but until EM accepts these facilities, NNSA is responsible for their maintenance.
The Senate Armed Services Committee Report accompanying the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 mandated GAO to assess the inventory of facilities that NNSA plans to transfer to EM for disposition. This report examines (1) how many facilities NNSA has identified for transfer to EM for disposition and their condition and (2) the extent to which EM considers risks of NNSA's contaminated nonoperational facilities and the costs to maintain them when prioritizing its cleanup activities. GAO reviewed documents and interviewed officials from NNSA and EM and visited two NNSA sites that have some of the most contaminated facilities.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has identified 83 facilities at six of its eight sites for transfer to the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) for disposition, and the condition of NNSA's facilities awaiting transfer continues to degrade. NNSA plans to transfer all 83 facilities to EM over the next 25 years. Twenty-seven of them are still operational but are expected to become nonoperational in the next 25 years, and 56 are nonoperational now. In 2009, EM agreed to accept 14 NNSA facilities when it had funds available to begin decontamination and decommissioning. Six years later, none of these facilities have been transferred, and EM officials said they may not be able to accept these or other NNSA facilities until at least 2030 due to budget uncertainties and other priorities. Meanwhile, as NNSA maintains contaminated nonoperational facilities, the facilities' condition continues to worsen, resulting in increased costs to maintain them, and NNSA documents show that some facilities will require significant additional maintenance to prevent the spread of contamination. For example, the Alpha-5 facility at NNSA's Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee has degraded to the extent that site officials now detect contaminants, such as mercury, in areas where they were not detected 2 years earlier, and additional funds are needed to repair its failing roof.
EM does not consider the risks of NNSA's nonoperational facilities when prioritizing its cleanup activities. Specifically, when developing its annual facility disposition plans, EM does not consider the human health or environmental risks of NNSA's contaminated nonoperational facilities that meet its transfer requirements but have not yet been transferred. A 2006 DOE Deputy Secretary Program Decision Memorandum stated that EM is to incorporate DOE's contaminated nonoperational facilities into its planning for decontamination and decommissioning, commensurate with the risk such activities pose. EM officials told GAO that they do not include facilities maintained by NNSA in their planning until they have available funding to begin cleanup work. However, without integrating NNSA's inventory of nonoperational facilities into its process for prioritizing facilities for disposition, EM may be prioritizing cleanup for lower-risk facilities under its management ahead of facilities at NNSA that may present a higher risk of spreading contamination.
Alpha-5, a Nonoperational Facility, Shows Degradation Over 2 Years
section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: GAO recommends, among other things, that EM integrate into one prioritized list all NNSA facilities that meet EM's transfer requirements. EM neither agreed nor disagreed with the recommendation, stating it has formed a working group that may address GAO's findings.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: Seventy years of nuclear weapons production and energy research by the  Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies generated  large amounts of radioactive waste, spent nuclear fuel, excess plutonium  and uranium, contaminated soil and groundwater, and thousands of  contaminated facilities, including land, buildings, and other structures and  their systems and equipment. As the agency responsible for the  management and security of the nation’s nuclear weapons, the National  Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency  within DOE, now manages many of the department’s contaminated  facilities, as directed by DOE policy. NNSA’s facilities may be  contaminated with chemicals and, in some cases, radiological materials,  which present some risk to workers near the facilities and the  environment. These facilities are located at six sites, and many of them  are nonoperational and no longer needed by NNSA, whereas others are  still operational but expected to become nonoperational in the next 25  years. Once NNSA determines that a contaminated facility is  nonoperational, and DOE finds it is not needed by other program offices,  it may be eligible for transfer to DOE’s Office of Environmental  Management (EM).
EM has not accepted any facilities from DOE’s program offices for  cleanup in over a decade. EM’s mission includes decontaminating and  decommissioning facilities that are contaminated from decades of nuclear  weapons production and nuclear energy research. Since its inception in  1989, EM has assumed responsibility for the disposition of 4,885  nonoperational nuclear, radiological, and industrial facilities. EM reported  at the end of fiscal year 2012 that it had completed the decontamination  and decommissioning of 1,927 (about 39 percent) of these facilities,  leaving 2,958 (about 61 percent) that remain under EM’s responsibility.  For its first decade of operation, all nonoperational DOE facilities—and, in  some cases, entire sites—that needed cleanup work were transferred to  EM as a general policy. In 2001, however, EM stopped accepting facilities  from other program offices and declared that each DOE program office,  including NNSA, was responsible for the disposition of its own  contaminated facilities. According to EM documents, this decision was  due in part to the large number of facilities it had already accepted and  the cost of the required maintenance.
In 2006, DOE directed EM to take responsibility for disposing of the  department’s contaminated nonoperational facilities. Specifically, a 2006  DOE Deputy Secretary Program Decision Memorandum stated that EM is  responsible for all work required to complete cleanup and dispose of  NNSA and other program offices’ facilities that were contaminated from  nuclear weapons production and nuclear energy research, as well as  contaminated soil and groundwater, wastes, spent nuclear fuel, and  surplus nuclear materials. The memorandum also stated that EM is to  incorporate all of DOE’s contaminated nonoperational facilities into its  planning commensurate with the risk such cleanup activities pose. It  further directed EM to resume accepting contaminated nonoperational  facilities from DOE program offices into its program for decontamination  and decommissioning.
As a result of the policy change, EM updated its policy in 2007 for DOE’s  program offices, including NNSA, to transfer their contaminated  nonoperational facilities to EM for decontamination and decommissioning.  Until they are transferred to EM, however, NNSA is responsible for  maintaining its facilities and incurring associated maintenance costs to  protect human health and the environment from the risk of contamination.  NNSA’s responsibilities may last for several years, or even decades,  depending on when EM is able to accept the facilities. For example,  NNSA’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico has been  maintaining a nonoperational facility contaminated with tritium—a  radioactive isotope of hydrogen used to enhance the power of U.S.  nuclear weapons—since 1994 while it awaits transfer to EM.
The Senate Armed Services Committee Report accompanying the  National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 directs GAO to  assess and report on the inventory of facilities that NNSA plans to  transfer to EM. This report focuses on NNSA’s contaminated facilities  and examines (1) how many facilities NNSA has identified for transfer to  EM for disposition and the facilities’ condition and (2) the extent to which  EM considers risks of NNSA’s contaminated nonoperational facilities and  the costs to maintain them when prioritizing its cleanup activities.
subsections: section_title: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To identify the number of facilities NNSA has identified to transfer to EM  and their condition, we reviewed DOE and NNSA policies, guidance  documents, and data related to the management of facilities. Specifically,  we reviewed NNSA’s 25-year site plans, which identify each site’s plans  for the disposition of contaminated facilities they manage and generally  plan for the years 2013 through 2037. We also analyzed data NNSA uses  to track the condition of its facilities and their associated surveillance and  maintenance costs. Specifically, we used NNSA’s data to identify  contaminated nonoperational facilities, operational facilities that will be  considered nonoperational over the next 25 years, and the annual cost to  maintain these facilities. NNSA collects these data from its sites  biannually and combines them into one database. To assess the reliability  of the data elements needed to answer our objectives, we reviewed  NNSA’s processes for verifying these data and related documents and  interviewed agency officials knowledgeable about the data. We also  corroborated the data obtained from NNSA headquarters with data we  collected from the six NNSA sites that manage these facilities. On the  basis of these steps, we determined that the data were sufficiently reliable  for our purposes. We also reviewed planning and policy documents that  NNSA uses to identify and manage facilities before they are transferred to  EM. In addition, we visited two of the six NNSA sites with contaminated  facilities—Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California  and the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) in Tennessee—to view  contaminated facilities and interview officials that are familiar with facility  surveillance and maintenance. We selected these two sites because  NNSA identified them as having some of the most contaminated facilities  and because these sites have both operational and nonoperational  facilities; because this is a nonprobability sample, our observations at  these sites cannot be generalized to all NNSA sites but provide illustrative  examples of sites with contaminated operational and nonoperational  facilities. We also interviewed officials in NNSA’s Office of Infrastructure  and Capital Planning, which is responsible for collecting the facility data  from the sites, as well as the Office of Field Financial Management.
To determine the extent to which EM considers the risks of NNSA’s  contaminated nonoperational facilities and the costs to maintain them, we  reviewed DOE and EM policies and guidance documents related to the  facility transfer process and prioritization of EM’s cleanup work.  Specifically, we reviewed DOE’s Transition Implementation Guide and  EM’s Standard Operating Policies and Procedures for Excess Facility  Transfer to the Office of Environmental Management, among others. We  also interviewed officials at EM’s Office of Deactivation and  Decommissioning and Facility Engineering, which developed EM’s  transfer process. To identify if and how a facility’s risk was factored into  the transfer process, we reviewed NNSA memorandums that identify risks  associated with its contaminated facilities and those outlining transfer  decisions between EM and NNSA. To learn how EM prioritizes cleanup  work and funding, we interviewed officials from EM’s Program Planning  and Budget Office. We also interviewed officials at EM’s site offices for Y- 12 and LANL because those sites have some of the oldest and most  contaminated facilities, according to NNSA documents. Additionally, we  interviewed EM officials to compare EM’s actions to assess and prioritize  risks with federal standards for internal control.
We conducted this performance audit from December 2013 to March  2015 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing  standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to  obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for  our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe  that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings  and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
section_title: Background
paragraphs: NNSA is one of the largest organizations in DOE, overseeing nuclear  weapons, nuclear nonproliferation, and naval reactor missions at eight  sites across the United States. NNSA is responsible for providing the  United States with safe, secure, and reliable nuclear weapons in the  absence of underground nuclear testing and maintaining core  competencies in nuclear weapons science, technology, and engineering.  Operating with a budget of $11.2 billion in fiscal year 2014, work activities  to support NNSA’s national security missions are largely carried out by  management and operating contractors; an arrangement with historical  roots. Since the Manhattan Project produced the first atomic bomb during  World War II, NNSA and its predecessor agencies have depended on the  expertise of private firms, universities, and others to carry out research  and development work and efficiently operate the facilities necessary for  the nation’s nuclear defense. Ensuring a safe and reliable nuclear  weapons stockpile is an extraordinarily complicated task and requires  state-of-the-art experimental and computing facilities, as well as the skills  of top scientists in the field.
The life cycle of an NNSA facility includes several phases, including  planning and acquisition, maintenance, operation, and disposal.  According to DOE’s policy on asset management, a program office, such  as NNSA, must notify DOE’s Office of Acquisition and Project  Management when it determines that a facility is not fully utilized or is not  needed for the mission of the program office. DOE then determines  whether the facility could be used by another program office. If the facility  is not accepted for use by another program office, DOE determines it to  be excess. At this point, if the facility is contaminated with chemicals  and/or radiological materials as a consequence of nuclear weapons  production and/or nuclear energy research, the facility becomes eligible  for potential transfer to EM for decontamination and decommissioning.
EM established a multistep transfer process in 2011 for NNSA and other  DOE program offices to transfer their contaminated facilities to EM for  decontamination and decommissioning. EM’s transfer process consists  of nine steps beginning with NNSA or another program office nominating  a facility for transfer. Once nominated, EM reviews the facility to confirm  that it meets EM’s eligibility requirements for transfer—the facility must be  considered excess to all DOE mission needs, not just to the program  office;  contaminated with chemical or radiological contaminants resulting  from nuclear weapons research and/or production, not contamination  resulting solely from construction material, such as asbestos; and an individual, self-contained facility, and not part of a larger complex.
After EM confirms a facility is eligible for transfer, EM evaluates it in more  detail and, if necessary, the program office performs necessary  stabilization activities, such as structural repairs and any other identified  actions to ensure the facility is in stable condition prior to transfer to EM  (see fig. 1).
When EM confirms a facility is eligible for transfer, however, the facility is  not transferred to EM until it has funding available to immediately begin  decontamination and decommissioning. EM adopted this funding- dependent disposition policy, as a practice, in 2007 and formalized it as  part of its transfer policy in 2011. Prior to 2001, EM had been given  responsibility for hundreds of excess facilities from other DOE program  offices without any additional resources to manage them, according to  EM officials. Until EM has funds available to immediately begin  disposition, program offices, such as NNSA, are responsible for  maintaining their nonoperational facilities through activities known as  surveillance and maintenance. Surveillance and maintenance activities  may include, for example, periodic inspections of structures, as well as  preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance. These activities may  also include the maintenance of selected systems and equipment  essential for transition and disposition activities, such as maintaining  ventilation systems, to ensure, at a minimum, that any contamination is  adequately contained and that the potential hazards to workers, the  public, and the environment are eliminated or mitigated and controlled.
Cleanup work at DOE’s sites is governed by one or more regulatory  agreements or orders that establish the scope of work to be performed at  a given site and the dates by which specific cleanup milestones must be  achieved. Cleanup work is performed at some sites under the  Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability  Act of 1980 (CERCLA). CERCLA, commonly known as Superfund,  provides federal authority to respond to releases or threatened releases  of hazardous substances, pollutants, and contaminants that may  endanger public health or the environment, and it established a trust fund  to pay for cleanup activities. Portions of the cleanup work are also subject  to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), which  generally prohibits the treatment, storage, or disposal of hazardous waste  without a permit. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may  authorize states to adopt and enforce their own hazardous waste  management programs (including issuing permits) as long as the state  programs are at least equivalent to and consistent with RCRA. In  addition, the Federal Facilities Compliance Act of 1992 made federal  facilities subject to state hazardous waste permitting and enforcement  authorities. Under these authorities, EM has entered into Federal  Facility Agreements with EPA and state regulatory agencies that establish  cleanup deadlines and milestones, as well as reporting and other  requirements.
section_title: NNSA Has Identified 83 Facilities to Be Transferred to EM for Disposition, and the Condition of Nonoperational Facilities Continues to Degrade
paragraphs: NNSA has identified 83 contaminated facilities for potential transfer to EM  for disposition over a 25-year period, 56 of which are currently  nonoperational. NNSA is maintaining these facilities for future transfer to  EM, but the condition of nonoperational facilities continues to degrade,  resulting in increasing costs to NNSA to maintain them to prevent the  spread of contamination.
subsections: section_title: NNSA Has Identified 83 Contaminated Facilities for Transfer to EM
paragraphs: According to NNSA facility data, NNSA has identified 83 contaminated  facilities at six of its eight sites for potential transfer to EM for disposition  over 25 years, 27 of which are operational, and 56 are nonoperational  (see fig. 2). NNSA identified these facilities as part of each site’s  process for planning for the disposition of contaminated facilities it  manages over a 25-year period; most sites completed their planning  process in 2013. Of the 27 contaminated facilities currently in operation,  NNSA expects 9 (33 percent) will be ready for disposition within the next  10 years. Most of the 27 operational facilities have been in operation for  decades—19 of them (70 percent) were constructed more than 50 years  ago. Appendix I lists the 83 facilities that NNSA has identified for potential  transfer to EM over 25 years.
According to NNSA facility data, the 56 nonoperational contaminated  facilities total over 1.5 million gross square feet of space. These facilities  range in size, use, and age. For example, one of NNSA’s smallest  contaminated nonoperational facilities is a 1,694 gross square foot  building that once served as a cryogenic lab located at Nevada National  Security Site. NNSA’s largest contaminated nonoperational facility,  located at Y-12, is over 613,000 gross square feet and was built to enrich  uranium for the Manhattan Project. Forty-five of NNSA’s 56 contaminated  nonoperational facilities (about 80 percent) were constructed 50 years  ago and, in some cases, have been nonoperational for decades. For  example, the Livermore Pool Type Reactor at LLNL, which was used for  nuclear weapons research and radiation studies, among other things, has  been nonoperational since 1980.
NNSA first nominated some of the 56 nonoperational facilities for  disposition in December 2008, after EM updated its process to transfer  contaminated facilities and requested NNSA and DOE’s Offices of  Science and Nuclear Energy to nominate facilities for transfer to EM. In  2008, NNSA nominated 39 nonoperational facilities from five sites for  transfer to EM, and EM agreed to accept 14 when it received funding to  begin decontamination and decommissioning, although none have  completed the transfer process and are part of the 56 nonoperational  facilities still maintained by NNSA. In 2009 when EM confirmed 14 of the  facilities for future transfer, it did not consider facilities that were  nominated at Y-12 because of their inclusion in a separate cleanup  project (see table 1).
EM officials stated that, while EM confirmed in 2009 that 14 NNSA  facilities were eligible for transfer to EM, none of those facilities have  been transferred and remain part of the 56 nonoperational facilities  managed by NNSA. According to officials in NNSA’s Office of  Infrastructure & Capital Planning, EM’s Office of Deactivation and  Decommissioning and Facility Engineering, and EM’s Office of Program  Planning and Budget, EM has not accepted the facilities because funding  is not available for EM to immediately begin cleanup activities. EM  officials told us that the program initially expected to have funds available  to accept and begin disposition of several of the 14 facilities in fiscal year  2017, but not enough funds are expected to be available at that time due  to competing priorities for cleanup work. As a result, EM officials told us  they estimate that EM may not be able to accept any facilities for transfer  until at least 2030 due to budget uncertainties. Until funds are available to  decontaminate and decommission facilities from the other program  offices, including NNSA, EM plans to focus its disposition resources on  the excess facilities it is currently responsible for, and NNSA remains  responsible for maintaining its contaminated facilities until they are  transferred to EM.
section_title: The Condition of NNSA’s Contaminated Nonoperational Facilities Continues to Worsen, Resulting in Increased Maintenance Costs
paragraphs: The condition of some of NNSA’s contaminated nonoperational facilities  continues to worsen, resulting in increased costs to maintain them. During  the last phases of a facility’s life cycle, according to DOE’s policies, an  agency is to ensure that surveillance and maintenance are adequate to  maintain the facility in stable and known conditions until it is transferred to  EM for disposition. Yet, NNSA documents show that several  nonoperational facilities will require more than the current level of  surveillance and maintenance as they continue to degrade and pose new  risks to workers and the environment.
At a facility known as Alpha-5 at Y-12, conditions have significantly  degraded since the last major maintenance activities 4 years ago,  causing maintenance costs to increase substantially. According to a 2014  internal NNSA document examining risks posed by nonoperational  facilities, multiple concrete ceiling panels are collapsing at Alpha-5, which  pose risks for workers who conduct the surveillance and maintenance  activities on the facility. The most dangerous of these failing panels have  been reinforced from within the facility to prevent complete collapse, and  temporary patches have been applied to the roof immediately above  these panels. Furthermore, even though DOE obligated over $100 million  in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to remove asbestos  floor tiles and other contaminated material and equipment from   Alpha-5, with the hope of reducing the facility’s risk and maintenance  costs, the condition of Alpha-5 has continued to degrade. Specifically,  site officials now detect radiological and toxicological contaminants— beryllium, mercury, and black mold—in areas where they were not  detected 2 years earlier (see fig. 3). The degrading condition at Alpha-5  not only increased the risk, surveillance and maintenance costs increased  from an annual average of about $1.2 million from 2009 to 2011 to an  average of almost $4 million annually in 2012 and 2013. Additional repair  activities were planned in fiscal year 2014, but even with these additional  repairs, according to NNSA documents, the overall risk of the facility to  workers and the environment will not be significantly reduced.
Site: Y-12 National Security Complex  Gross square feet:  613,642  Year deactivated:  2000  Annual anticipated surveillance and  expenditures:  $3,394,000  Total estimated disposition cost:  $345,488,000  Commissioned in 1944, Alpha-5 performed  uranium enrichment for the Manhattan Project  and later played a central role during the Cold  War. Contaminants, including mercury,  beryllium, and black mold, now cover 75 to 80  percent of the facility. The facility is located  adjacent to active facilities and approximately  a third of a mile from a residential  neighborhood. Since the facility was  deactivated, the roof has experienced  substantial degradation, and water has  entered and damaged the facility. Entrance  into most areas of the facility requires  personal protective equipment, including a  full-face respirator. For fiscal year 2015, site  officials estimated they need $15 million to  replace the failing roof at the facility. Despite  temporary patches and repairs, the roof has  continued to degrade, and water continues to  enter the facility, resulting in flooding and the  spread of radiological and toxicological  contamination within the facility. Alpha-5 also  has a leaking steam system, which  accelerates mold growth and the spread of  contamination. Roadways and sidewalks  immediately outside the facility are regularly  used by site workers, according to NNSA  information on the facility. They could be  injured or exposed to contamination by falling  concrete, ceiling panels, and roofing materials  from the facility.
Site: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory  (LLNL)  Gross square feet: 31,809  Year deactivated: 1995  Annual anticipated surveillance and  expenditures: $607,044   Total estimated disposition cost:  $62,000,000  Commissioned in 1956, the Heavy Elements  Facility performed research activities  associated with underground nuclear testing  and on the behavior of heavy elements. The  facility is located half a mile from a residential  neighborhood. According to a National  Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)  document about the facility’s risks, significant  radiological and chemical contamination is  present throughout the facility, including in the  walls, floors, air filtration systems, and ducting.  Beryllium contamination may be present in  some localized areas as well. The facility’s  roof has failed and is leaking over  contaminated areas. Radiological  contaminants have migrated, and there are  areas of the facility that are inaccessible  because of contamination. In 2003, the site  spent about $22,000,000 to remove materials  and equipment from the facility and reduce  hazards, but contamination remains dispersed  throughout the facility and its systems. NNSA  now estimates that mitigating the risks  associated with the facility’s failing roof and air  filtration systems will cost at least $1,000,000.
NNSA data show that the agency spent almost $34 million maintaining  the 27 facilities still in operation that will become nonoperational within the  next 25 years and over $10 million in fiscal year 2013 on surveillance and  maintenance activities for the 56 nonoperational facilities (see table 2).
Site officials at both Y-12 and LLNL told us that nonoperational facilities  continue to degrade because of limited surveillance and maintenance  resources. Officials at Y-12 said that balancing the needs of operational  facilities with the need to prevent the spread of contamination at  nonoperational facilities is a challenge with limited resources because  both types of facilities require maintenance to protect workers and the  environment.
section_title: EM Does Not Consider Risks or Costs of NNSA’s Contaminated Nonoperational Facilities When Prioritizing Cleanup Activities
paragraphs: When developing its annual plans and schedules for decontaminating and  decommissioning facilities, EM does not consider the human health and  environmental risks of NNSA’s contaminated nonoperational facilities that  are eligible for transfer, but have not yet been transferred to EM.  Furthermore, when establishing its cleanup priorities, EM does not take  into account the costs of deferring disposition of NNSA’s contaminated  nonoperational facilities.
subsections: section_title: EM Does Not Consider the Risks of NNSA’s Nonoperational Facilities When Prioritizing Cleanup Activities
paragraphs: EM considers the risks to human health and the environment of the  facilities it is responsible for when prioritizing them for decontamination  and decommissioning, but it does not consider the risks posed by  facilities it has not yet accepted from NNSA. Consequently,  nonoperational facilities maintained by NNSA that meet EM’s transfer  requirements may continue to degrade while lower-risk facilities already  under EM’s responsibility are decontaminated and decommissioned.
EM prioritizes its facilities for decontamination and decommissioning each  year as part of its process for preparing its submission to DOE’s annual  budget justification. Under this process, EM asks each site to create a  prioritized list of facilities for disposition and other cleanup activities for  the forthcoming fiscal year. When developing such lists, officials at EM’s  sites consider facilities currently under EM’s responsibility. These site- level lists prioritize cleanup activities based on a number of site-specific  factors, including regulatory commitments, footprint reduction goals,  agreements with EPA and states, and risks to worker safety and the  environment. However, EM does not include in its prioritized lists  contaminated nonoperational facilities maintained by NNSA that meet  EM’s transfer requirements.
In some cases, NNSA’s contaminated nonoperational facilities may pose  greater human health and environmental risks than facilities EM plans to  decontaminate and decommission. For example, in 2014 EM completed  the decommissioning of two uncontaminated water towers at LANL at a  cost of $575,667, which contributes to the site’s goal of reducing the  amount of land and facilities used by the site and, according to site  officials, to prepare the land to be transferred to the county. According to  one EM official at LANL, these water towers posed very little risk to  human health and the environment. In contrast, NNSA’s Ion Beam Facility  at LANL, a contaminated nonoperational facility that has been awaiting  transfer to EM for 20 years, poses human health and environmental risks,  according to NNSA documents and officials.
Site: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)  Gross square feet: 56,259  Year deactivated: 1999 (vacated in 1994)  Annual anticipated surveillance and  expenditures: $169,000   Total estimated disposition cost:  $14,000,000  Commissioned in 1953, the Ion Beam Facility  supported post-World War II scientific  research, including nuclear physics  experiments. Large sections of the facility are  contaminated with radiological or chemical  materials, including tritium and possibly  mercury. According to a National Nuclear  Security Administration (NNSA) document  describing the facility’s risks, the facility is  located adjacent to the most populated area  of the site, and less than a quarter mile from  an active mission facility. The facility is also in  close proximity to a wooded canyon and, if a  wildfire spread to the facility, according to the  NNSA documents, it could result in the  uncontrolled release of contamination and  force an evacuation of LANL’s main technical  area. Tritium contamination at the facility  cannot be addressed until disposition occurs  due to the nature of the contamination. In the  meantime, maintaining the integrity of the  building is critical to prevent water infiltration  and the spread of contamination, but roof  maintenance is challenging because of the  facility’s height. In the mid-2000s, NNSA  invested over $2 million to mitigate hazards  associated with contaminated systems at the  Ion Beam Facility, but the facility continues to  degrade. Before 2019, according to NNSA  information, the facility will require more than  the current level of surveillance and  maintenance to protect workers, the public,  and the environment.
According to the 2006 DOE Deputy Secretary Program Decision  Memorandum, EM is to incorporate DOE’s contaminated nonoperational  facilities into its planning for decontamination and decommissioning,  commensurate with the risk such activities pose. Additionally, federal  standards for internal control state that, in conducting risk assessments,  management needs to comprehensively identify risks and should  consider all significant interactions between the entity and other parties,  as well as internal and external factors at both the entitywide and activity  levels. EM officials told us that EM does not include contaminated  nonoperational facilities maintained by NNSA and other program offices  in its planning until EM officials believe they will have available funding to  begin decontamination and decommissioning. At that time, they will  consider which facilities to fund. However, without developing a  prioritized, risk-based list of facilities for disposition that includes facilities  from NNSA, it is unclear whether EM’s planning is consistent with the  2006 memorandum, and EM may not be providing Congress with the  most complete information on its cleanup needs and priorities in its  annual budget submissions. Such planning would also help inform EM’s  annual budget submission.
section_title: EM Does Not Consider the Costs of Deferring Cleanup of NNSA’s Nonoperational Facilities When Developing Cleanup Schedules
paragraphs: EM’s process for prioritizing facilities for cleanup does not take into  account the costs associated with deferring the disposition of NNSA’s  nonoperational facilities. A 2010 EM study considered the cost of  deferring decontamination and decommissioning several facilities and  found that hundreds of millions of dollars could be saved if EM disposed  of the facilities earlier than planned, but no analysis has been done for  facilities already accepted by EM or nonoperational facilities at NNSA.  Specifically, EM conducted a life cycle cost analysis in 2010 to determine  if costs would be saved by disposing of contaminated facilities at five  DOE Office of Science sites earlier than it had originally planned. Based  on that analysis, EM concluded that, if disposition work began in 2010  rather than 2017 as it had originally planned, the early cleanup would  result in life cycle savings of about $734 million, primarily by avoiding  future surveillance and maintenance costs. According to one senior  official from EM’s Office of Deactivation and Decommissioning and  Facility Engineering, EM did not begin disposition of these facilities after  EM performed the life cycle cost analysis because EM did not request  funds to accelerate the cleanup. Although EM has not performed such  analyses for NNSA’s nonoperational facilities that meet EM’s transfer  requirements, one senior official from EM’s Office of Deactivation and  Decommissioning and Facility Engineering told us that such an analysis  may show that hundreds of millions of dollars could be saved by avoiding  future surveillance and maintenance costs and increased disposition  costs.
Conditions at many of NNSA’s contaminated facilities, some of which  have been nonoperational for many years, continue to worsen, resulting  in increased costs and risks, which are not considered by EM when  prioritizing its cleanup work. As previously discussed, facility life cycle  costs—including surveillance and maintenance and disposition costs— and risks to human health and the environment continue to increase as  facilities degrade. For example, site officials estimate that about $2.6  million in repairs and structural upgrades will be needed for two  nonoperational contaminated facilities at LLNL prior to 2019—11 years  before EM officials estimate they may be able to accept any facilities from  NNSA for disposition, as shown in the following examples:
The MARS E-Beam Facility: This facility will require an estimated  $700,000 to temporarily extend the life of its roof for 5 to 8 years and  remove air filtration systems that could release contaminants. The  facility stopped operating in 1999 and has a structurally failing roof  above contaminated areas that has resulted in water intrusion, which  NNSA documents state could spread contamination.
The Rotating Target Neutron Source Facility: This facility stopped  operating in 1987 and will need an estimated $1.9 million to mitigate  the risks of a failing roof above highly contaminated areas, which has  resulted in water intrusion that could spread tritium contamination.
A 2011 EM report found that the longer facilities sit idle, the further they  degrade, and the more dangerous and costly they are to maintain or  dispose of. The report also stated that some older facilities have a  limited life before major investments and structural upgrades must be  considered to maintain the ability to safely enter them for cleanup  activities. According to the GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide,  which is a compilation of cost-estimating best practices drawn from  across industry and government, agencies should consider all life cycle  costs, risks, and trade-offs to support the best decisions for allocating  existing and future resources. Nevertheless, EM does not consider the  remaining life cycle costs of NNSA’s contaminated nonoperational  facilities, such as NNSA’s costs for surveillance and maintenance and  structural upgrades, in developing its lists of cleanup priorities, according  to EM officials. Officials from EM’s Office of Deactivation and  Decommissioning and Facility Engineering told us that, in their view, EM  does not need to evaluate the surveillance and maintenance costs of  facilities for which it is not responsible.
EM documents have identified several benefits of early disposition that  could be realized if life cycle costs are considered in the cleanup  prioritization process. In 2005, EM finished a $6.5 billion, 10-year  accelerated cleanup of the Rocky Flats Site located 16 miles northwest of  Denver, Colorado, even though DOE had estimated in 1995 that the  cleanup and disposition activities at Rocky Flats would require $27 billion  over 65 years. Disposition activities at Rocky Flats required the  decontamination and decommissioning of 800 nonoperational facilities,  including structures contaminated with radiological and chemical  materials. We reported in July 2006 that the accelerated schedule was  one of four factors that contributed to the early completion of Rocky Flats’  cleanup. In a 2009 report to Congress, EM estimated that its early  disposition and cleanup of Rocky Flats resulted in $20.5 billion in life  cycle cost savings, including savings on future surveillance and  maintenance costs, and 50 years in schedule savings.
Site: Y-12 National Security Complex  Gross square feet: 313,771  Year deactivated: 2007  Annual anticipated surveillance and  expenditures: $1,735,000   Total estimated disposition cost:  $194,357,000  Commissioned in 1945, Beta-4 originally  performed uranium enrichment during World  War II, but transitioned to lithium enrichment  and weapons fabrication support during the  Cold War. The facility is contaminated with  radiological and other hazardous materials  including uranium alloys, asbestos, lead, and  mercury. Beta-4 is located adjacent to active  facilities and is approximately a third of a mile  from a residential neighborhood. The facility is  degrading and, according to site officials,  structural failures could result in releases of  radiological and chemical contamination in the  event of a fire. According to National Nuclear  Security Administration documents, areas of  the facility’s roof leak and windows are  loosening from their casements. Water  intrusion due to the deteriorating roof could  result in the spread of contamination. Further,  according to the documents, if a fire occurred,  workers could be exposed to chemical and  radiological materials, and water runoff from  fire suppression activities could contain  contaminants. The facility also obstructs  access to soil suspected to require  remediation.
EM’s accelerated cleanup of the Fernald Site in Harrison, Ohio, produced  similar results. EM’s cleanup of Fernald included the decontamination  and decommissioning of over 178 facilities. By pursuing closure and  disposition of the Fernald Site earlier than planned, cleanup was  completed 23 years early and for $200 million less than EM originally  estimated. In 2008, EM considered the costs of deferring cleanup at a  facility within the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In considering  such costs, EM chose to decontaminate and decommission Building  711-L, a facility with a collapsing roof, earlier than it had originally  planned, which allowed the program office to avoid spending operating  funds repairing and maintaining a deteriorating nonoperational facility that  would later be demolished. By weighing the full life cycle costs and  deciding to perform accelerated disposition, EM documents show that  there are other benefits beyond cost savings of avoiding future  surveillance and maintenance costs, including:  reducing disposition costs by avoiding future repairs,  reducing environmental and safety risks from highly contaminated and  degraded facilities, and making areas of land and infrastructure available to support agency  missions and reduce sites’ footprints.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: EM faces an enormous task in the disposition of the nation’s  contaminated facilities that were used to develop and produce nuclear  weapons, many of which still contain radioactive and other hazardous  substances. Assessing all of the nonoperational contaminated facilities  across NNSA’s sites, prioritizing them for decontamination and  decommissioning, as well as conducting cleanup activities is a  complicated undertaking for EM. However, EM is not comprehensively  integrating risks posed by NNSA’s nonoperational contaminated facilities,  as called for by the 2006 Deputy Secretary Program Decision  Memorandum and federal internal control standards. By not integrating  nonoperational facilities from NNSA with its own lists of cleanup priorities,  EM is not including all risks from NNSA in its planning and may be putting  lower-risk facilities under its responsibility ahead of deteriorating facilities  managed by NNSA that are of greater risk to human health and the  environment. Without developing such a prioritized, risk-based list, EM is  not providing Congress with complete information about EM’s current and  future cleanup obligations as Congress deliberates annually about  appropriating funds for cleanup activities. As EM has previously  demonstrated in its analysis of the costs of deferring facility disposition  and by cleaning up the Rocky Flats and Fernald sites earlier than  planned, analyzing life cycle costs of nonoperational facilities shows that  accelerating cleanup of some facilities, while others are maintained in  their current states, could offer significant cost savings. EM does not  currently analyze and consider life cycle costs for facilities it does not  manage because it does not accept facilities for transfer until funding is  available to carry out the decontamination and decommissioning work.  However, because EM is not considering the full life cycle costs of such  facilities, EM cannot ensure that its plans for decontaminating and  decommissioning facilities result in the most cost-effective use of its  limited resources. Once EM has a full understanding of the costs of  deferring disposition, it can better communicate its cleanup priorities to  Congress.
section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: We recommend the Secretary of Energy direct the Office of  Environmental Management (EM) to take the following two actions to aid  EM in its decision making on which facilities to accept and decontaminate  and decommission:
To ensure that EM’s annual process to prioritize facilities for  decontamination and decommissioning considers all relevant risks  from NNSA, EM should integrate its lists of facilities prioritized for  disposition with all NNSA facilities that meet EM’s transfer  requirements, and EM should include this integrated list as part of the  Congressional Budget Justification for DOE.
To better inform its prioritization of facilities for cleanup and identify  opportunities for cost savings, EM should analyze remaining life cycle  costs of all nonoperational NNSA facilities that meet its transfer  requirements and incorporate the information into its prioritization  process.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We provided a draft of this report to DOE for review and comment.  Responding on behalf of DOE, EM provided written comments in a letter  dated March 4, 2015, which are summarized below and reprinted in  appendix II. In its written comments, DOE stated that it concurred with the  issues identified in our report and described actions it plans to implement  to address them. DOE, however, did not state whether it concurred with  the report’s recommendations. Specifically, DOE, in response to a DOE  Office of Inspector General report, is establishing a working group on  excess contaminated facilities with representation from DOE’s major  program offices, including NNSA and EM, and states that the efforts of  the working group will address the substantive issues identified by both  reports.
We have not examined the mission or operation of the working group,  and although DOE states that the efforts of the working group will address  our recommendations, it is not clear from DOE’s written comments  whether the working group will do so. We continue to believe that  implementing our recommendations will help to provide Congress with  complete information about EM’s current and future facility disposition  obligations, the relative risks they pose, and ensure that EM’s plans for  decontaminating and decommissioning facilities result in the most cost- effective use of its limited resources.
Additionally, in its written comments, DOE stated that the 2006 DOE  Deputy Secretary Program Decision Memorandum referenced in our  report provided guidance for fiscal years 2008-2012, and therefore is not  currently operative. We added text to our report describing its effective  dates, but this memorandum’s expiration does not affect our finding that  EM does not incorporate NNSA’s contaminated nonoperational facilities  into its planning for decontamination and decommissioning.  Notwithstanding its expiration, senior officials in EM’s Office of  Deactivation and Decommissioning and Facility Engineering and officials  in NNSA’s Office of Infrastructure and Capital Planning told us that they  treat this memorandum as current and applicable guidance and it is still  serving as the basis for current facility transfer decisions. DOE also  provided technical comments that we incorporated as appropriate.
We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional  committees, the Secretary of Energy, and other interested parties. In  addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at  http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, please  contact me at (202) 512-3841 or trimbled@gao.gov. Contact points for  our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found  on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to  this report are listed in appendix III.
section_title: Appendix I: 83 Facilities Identified by the National Nuclear Security Administration for Transfer to the Office of Environmental Management, 2014
subsections: section_title: Site: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory LS222
section_title: Site: Sandia National Laboratories 6588
section_title: Facility ID number Site: Savannah River Site 232000
paragraphs: Dev. labs & offices  Dev. labs. & offices  Dev. labs. & offices  Production (Alpha-5)
Production (Beta-4)
Production (Alpha-1)
Production (Beta-2e)
section_title: Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Energy
section_title: Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the individual named above, Nathan Anderson, Assistant  Director; Wyatt R. Hundrup; Emily C. Pinto; and Cody J. Raysinger made  key contributions to this report. Richard Burkard, R. Scott Fletcher, Cindy  Gilbert, Paul Kinney, Alison D. O’Neill, Karen Richey, Jack Wang, and  Jessica Wintfeld also made important contributions.