Feds may be investigating timecard issues at Hanford vit plant

The Department of Justice appears to be taking a look at timecard issues at the Hanford vitrification plant, after reaching settlements with Hanford tank farm contractors.

The Herald recently obtained copies of emails reportedly sent to workers at the vitrification plant in July and August instructing them to preserve all information and emails regarding charging for labor, recording time worked, overtime and related matters.

An Aug. 24 email sent from “Legal and Risk Management” said the preservation of information was related to a civil investigative demand regarded the Hanford nuclear reservation’s vitrification plant. The demand was issued by the Department of Justice to Bechtel National, which holds the Department of Energy contract to build the vitrification plant, the email said.

The Aug. 24 email instructed that documents be preserved related to the recording and charging of hourly labor, including union labor, from January 2009 to the present.

It listed more types of documents that should be saved than a July 27 email listed, including “all documents concerning the service of the search warrant and interviews requested by the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General since June 20, 2017.”

The list, with 16 bullet points, also included documents related to Bechtel management’s executive compensation and to negotiations with the union building trades.

Another email, sent by a Bechtel attorney July 31, said “as you may be aware, the government is conducting an inquiry into certain time charging matters” relating to the vitrification plant project.

It gave workers legal instructions, saying that if they were contacted by a federal investigators they had the right to either speak with them or decline to speak with them. Workers have a right to have their attorney present or may request that a Bechtel attorney be present, it said.

The Department of Justice does not comment on investigations, and DOE and Bechtel also did not comment.

The $17 billion vitrification plant is being built to turn up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste into a stable glass form. The waste is left from the past production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

In 2013, the former tank farm contractor at Hanford, CH2M, agreed to pay $18.5 million to settle civil and criminal allegations of defrauding taxpayers through timecard fraud at Hanford from 2005-08.

Workers at the tank farms were accused of refusing to work overtime unless it was offered in eight-hour blocks. When overtime assignments were completed, they would go home but claim a full eight hours of overtime, CH2M acknowledged in the settlement agreement.

By paying eight hours of overtime when fewer hours were worked, CH2M Hill was able to recruit volunteers for overtime and finish work needed to earn profit for meeting performance goals in its DOE contract, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Washington. DOE reimbursed CH2M Hill for the hourly and overtime pay to employees.

Early this year, the current Hanford tank farm contractor also settled allegations of timecard fraud, agreeing to pay nearly $5.3 million.

Washington River Protection Solutions failed to change faulty procedures and curtail timecard fraud at the tank farms until July 2013, according to the Department of Justice. Washington River Protection Solutions was awarded the tank farm contract in October 2008.

The contractor disagreed with the Department of Justice and said it denied any wrongdoing related to timekeeping or internal audit practices.