Audit of the deactivation, decontamination, and disposal of surplus facilities at the Savannah River Site

Westinghouse Savannah River Company (Westinghouse) is responsible for managing the Department of Energy`s (Department) surplus facilities at the Savannah River Site (Site). In Fiscal Year (FY) 1996, the Site had 162 surplus facilities and anticipated that 118 more would become surplus within the next 5 years. The objective of this audit was to determine whether the Savannah River Operations Office (Operations Office) and Westinghouse had economically and promptly deactivated, decontaminated, and disposed of surplus facilities at the Site. Departmental regulations require that surplus facilities be deactivated, decontaminated, and disposed of economically and promptly. However, Westinghouse only disposed of one facility and did not completely deactivate or decontaminate any of the 162 facilities identified as surplus at the Site in FY 1996. This occurred because the Operations Office did not compile a Site-wide list, establish priorities, or provide sufficient funding for the deactivation, decontamination, and disposal of surplus facilities. As a result, the Department incurred unnecessary costs for the surveillance and maintenance of surplus facilities. For example, the Department could have avoided annual costs of about $1.3 million in surveillance and maintenance costs by spending $1.2 million to perform a deactivation project on the P-Reactor process-water storage tanks. The Operations Office could have funded the project out of its unobligated FY 1996 operating funds. However, it returned the unobligated funds to the Department`s Headquarters at the end of the fiscal year. The Operations Office concurred with the finding and recommendations and initiated corrective action