UCOR earns $24.7M for work at OR fed facilities; 98% of fee

The Oak Ridger
·2 min read

The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management recently awarded Oak Ridge cleanup contractor UCOR $24.7 million for its performance from April through October 2021, which according to a news release, amounts to 98% of the available fee for the evaluation period.

UCOR workers remove waste from Alpha-2 as part of deactivation work at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge.
UCOR workers remove waste from Alpha-2 as part of deactivation work at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge.

Environmental Management officials issued its fee determination scorecard for UCOR for the seven-month period after completing its evaluation.

EM releases information relating to contractor fee payments — earned by completing the work called for in the contracts — to further transparency in its cleanup program, the release from UCOR stated.

UCOR received “excellent” ratings for project management and business systems, quality and safety culture, and regulatory and stakeholder activity; a “good” rating for operations management; and “high confidence” for cost and schedule incentive, according to the scorecard.

Following are accomplishments made by UCOR during the evaluation period:

  • Projected to underrun its contract by more than $68 million by completing work ahead of schedule and under budget.

  • Advanced cleanup on 27 excess contaminated facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex, which house DOE's largest inventory of high-priority excess facilities, and completed actions required to close the East Tennessee Technology Park.

  • Effectively addressed supply chain challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, minimizing cost and schedule impacts.

  • Continued implementing effective COVID-19 controls with no workplace transmission cases since the start of the pandemic.

  • Awarded about 85% of its subcontracts to small businesses in fiscal 2021, exceeding its goal of 65%.

Other findings

The scorecard stated that while UCOR continues to be responsive to incidents and make improvements, it experienced "issues in the areas of transportation, safety, communication, and work packages" and "issues related to Powered Air Purifying Respirator usage and control of hazardous energy, and transportation" that highlight the need for more improvement.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: UCOR earns $24.7M for work at OR fed facilities; 98% of fee