Case Study 7: Privatization of Hanford Decontamination Laundry Facility

Background

The DOE Richland Operations Office in Washington State was faced with the need to replace the outdated Hanford Site’s 42-year-old government-owned, contractor-operated decontamination laundry facility. The estimated cost to build a new facility on the Hanford Site was more than $20 million. In an effort to find a more cost-effective solution to meeting Hanford’s decontamination laundry needs, DOE decided to issue a competitive solicitation to acquire offsite commercial laundry services.

The Hanford laundry processes 3 million to 4 million pounds of contaminated and noncontaminated clothing each year. Each washer has a 600-pound capacity

The Effort

A contract for laundry services was signed on August 5, 1992, with Interstate Nuclear Services of Springfield, Massachusetts. Groundbreaking for a new decontamination laundry, to be owned, built, and operated by Interstate Nuclear Services, took place in Richland in December 1992. In August 1993, one year after contract award, Interstate Nuclear Services’ Richland decontamination laundry facility began operating and accepting laundry from the Hanford Site as well as from other facilities. INS was responsible for obtaining all necessary licenses and permits for operating their facility.

INS provides cleaning, decontamination, and pickup and delivery services for personnel protection clothing and respirator masks for the Hanford Site. INS expects to process about 4.5 million pounds of laundry yearly at the Richland facility. Hanford’s decontamination laundry needs of approximately 3.1 million pounds represent almost 70 percent of the plant’s business; the remaining 30 percent comes from other entities, including the Washington Public Power Supply System and the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.

Lessons Learned

By contracting with the private sector for decontamination laundry services, DOE is saving approximately $3 million per year in operating costs and has avoided spending more than $20 million to construct a new onsite decontamination laundry facility. As an additional benefit, a new business was attracted to the City of Richland and has created private-sector jobs and contributed to the city’s economic diversification efforts. Another benefit of the privatization of the Hanford decontamination laundry services is that it has allowed the Richland Operations Office to meet a Tri-Party Agreement milestone to discontinue laundry effluent discharge to the soil column ahead of the January 1995 deadline.

As one of the early privatization efforts, this project also demonstrated the need to involve affected stakeholders, including organized labor, early in the process. Since this project was conceived and implemented, Section 3161 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1993 was enacted. That provision’s requirements for work-force restructuring plans, with required consultation and notification, would have addressed many of the difficulties encountered during this privatization.