KENNEWICK, Wash. — The Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused one of Hanford’s biggest contractors of repeatedly billing the government for work that wasn’t done in a multi-million dollar “scheme” that they said managers “actively facilitated.”
The allegations stem from the team responsible for making sure the nuclear site is prepared for a fire at the location by testing and maintaining pipes, sprinklers and alarms.
The DOJ says managers for Hanford Mission Integration Support (HMIS) were assigning just a few hours of work while instructing their employees to charge for full 10 hours days. According to a whistleblower on the fire suppression support team, for years he and his co-workers have spent time looking for things to do, reading, watching Netflix and occasionally taking naps.
“We are begging for work,” said Bradley Keever, who filed a complaint against his employer, HMIS, over the alleged timecard cheating. “I can’t believe I get paid to do this. To do nothing. I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do nothing.”
Claims of timecard fraud scheme
Keever still works for HMIS at Hanford. He is protected by the federal Whistleblower Protection Act which makes it unlawful for employers to retaliate against or threaten reprisal against employees for reporting evidence of wrongdoing.
According to a complaint filed by the DOJ, due to HMIS’s “failure to appropriately plan and schedule” work they “regularly engaged in a fraudulent timecard scheme designed to fleece the Department of Energy.”
Making sure Hanford is ready for a fire is essential work. Hanford is the most contaminated worksite in America. Plutonium was produced for decades at the 580 square mile reservation near Richland for the country’s nuclear weapons program. The work left behind millions of gallons of radioactive waste, hundreds of contaminated buildings and toxic soil. Since the late '80s, work at Hanford has comprised of cleanup operations only.
“It’s hard to think of a place in the state of Washington where having fire systems ready to go at a moment’s notice would be more essential,” said Nikolas Peterson, executive director of Hanford Challenge, a Seattle-based watchdog group. Hanford Challenge also serves as Keever's legal representative and filed the original complaint against HMIS on behalf of their client.
But a federal board charged with making sure nuclear facilities run as safely as possible found glaring lapses in fire suppression efforts at Hanford, during the same time HMIS is accused of overcharging the Department of Energy for that type of work.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) discovered significant maintenance gaps, including pipe inspections that "had not been performed in many years," according to a DNFSB 2023 report. In another 2023 report, the board found at one section of the site “(All) fire suppression systems … have been determined inoperable.”
"A fire is one of the most likely emergency scenarios at Hanford that could spread chemical and radioactive waste far and wide," Peterson said. "To not know the status of every single fire system was terrifying."
'We’re stealing from the taxpayers'
The DOJ cited a few specific examples of alleged fraud in its complaint, including:
- Managers instructed workers without job assignments to charge for full days of "training."
- Two workers billed two hours for a job that took merely 14 minutes.
- An employee without a work assignment charged for a full 10-hour workday but admitted to spending the day in front of a screen, including watching the 1990s romantic comedy "There's Something About Mary."
The whistleblower, Bradley Keever, said other wasteful practices included assigning workers to clean their trucks multiple times a week. Keever said he was assigned that task as well, even though he doesn’t have a work truck.
“It is lying, it is cheating, it is stealing. We’re stealing from the taxpayers. Our taxes are outrageous,” Keever said. “Why pay a company to have their guys sit around?”
The contractor at the center of the controversy, HMIS, sent a statement saying they continue to look for ways to optimize productivity at Hanford.
“HMIS is cooperating with the Department of Justice, the Office of Inspector General and the Department of Energy on this matter. We are committed to resolution and identifying means of continuous improvement to increase our effectiveness as a DOE contractor,” wrote an HMIS spokesperson.
HMIS has a multi-billion-dollar contract with the federal government at Hanford to carry out many tasks including electrical work, business administration, security, firefighting, and the testing and maintenance of fire suppression systems. The DOJ said the case at issue wasted “millions” of taxpayer dollars.
A trial date is set for September 2025 where the government will attempt to recoup some of the alleged losses. The case could be settled instead.
Keever said he wants to make sure the public knows he and his coworkers have been ready, able and eager to do their jobs at Hanford to help keep the workforce, environment and the public safe.
“We don’t want to be that reputation of being that lazy Hanford worker that doesn’t want to do anything. We’re forced to be that lazy Hanford worker,” Keever said. “We have very highly skilled craftsmen that are ready and are begging, just to work.”