Page images
PDF
EPUB

plant at Dana from the public-service company, and in this instance it will have to be generated on the site.

Mr. THOMAS. Here is another project on which your original estimate was $428,000,000 and now you have it up to $601,840,000. Why was that missed? That could not have been due to the increase in material and labor costs, could it?

Mr. Cook. Well, the original estimate of $428,000,000 did not include certain reactor components, and this estimate does include these items for the reactors, and that amount is $63,000,000.

Mr. THOMAS. Well, now, here is another project. Your original estimate was $113,000,000, and now you have it up to $178,977,000. How did you miss that so badly?

Mr. Cook. At the time this estimate was prepared, research and development was being conducted for the process to be selected. Since the estimate has been prepared the processes have been selected, and this represents a more realistic estimate based on the more recent information we have.

Mr. THOMAS. On still another project your original estimate was $30,000,000, and now it is $57,453,000.

Mr. Cook. That is a figure we were discussing recently. The major reason for that is that the scope has been more clearly defined. The technical processes and development facilities are included in this area; the central shops and warehouses for the whole operation are included.

Mr. THOMAS. What type of construction do you have for the central shops and warehouses?

Mr. Cook. That is class 3. That is standard type of construction.

GENERAL SITE DEVELOPMENT

Mr. THOMAS. Here is the project about which Mr. Gore has gone into in great detail. You gave no estimate back in December for that. Now it is $112,950,000. Certainly there is nothing secret in that. That is general site development.

How many buildings do you have in this entire compound? Back under "Site development" you say—

Considerable erosion protection will be required since those streams will be transformed into small rivers.

How much are you spending for erosion work under that project 1020, "General site development"?

Mr. Cook. That is not broken out in this breakdown. It is included in roads, bridges, culverts, and dredging.

Mr. THOMAS. Do you know how much you are spending for that purpose?

Mr. WILLIAMS. I have here the number of operating buildings at both the Savannah and the Dana site as 63; utility buildings, 79; and service buildings as 117.

Mr. THOMAS. Give us a run-down of those buildings.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I do not have the list; I just have the total. Maybe Mr. Nelson has that.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Nelson, have you a list of the utility buildings, 79?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Those would be various structures-guard structures, job houses, and every type of building.

Mr. THOMAS. What do those 79 buildings cost? They are not buildings that are directly connected with the manufacturing; in other words, the manufacturing is done in buildings outside of these 79? Mr. WILLIAMS. That is done in the 63.

Mr. Cook. The operating buildings total 63; the utility buildings are buildings in the manufacturing area supporting the primary operating buildings.

Mr. THOMAS. You have 79 of those utility buildings. What is the total cost of those 79 utility buildings?

Mr. Cook. We have it broken down by each area, but it would take some time to go through and draw it out at this time. I can give it to you at a later date.

Mr. THOMAS. Will you insert the cost figure for those 63 operating buildings at this point in the record and the cost of your 79 utility buildings, or whatever name you call them, at this point in the record? Mr. Cook. Yes, sir.

(The information is as follows:)

Estimated cost and number of operating, utility, and service buildings for the Savannah River project (including Dana site)

[blocks in formation]

Mr. THOMAS. Getting back to Mr. Nelson, what size staff do you have down at your plant directly working for the Atomic Energy Commission? Did I understand you to say 235?

Mr. NELSON. Yes, sir; in the over-all program.

Mr. THOMAS. Just what supervision do you and your staff have over (1) the prime contractor; (2) the subcontractors; and (3) your architects-engineers with reference to plans, designs, laying out of the buildings and the grounds as well as the construction of the buildings themselves?

Mr. NELSON. I have what we call a technical division in which I have about 12 chemical engineers and other types of engineers who follow the development work that we are doing and the conceptional design-that is, the design prior to the actual drawing up of any plans-from day to day with the contractor's people. They have a review meeting every week.

Mr. THOMAS. Are those gentlemen architects and engineers, construction people, or what are they?

Mr. NELSON. Those gentlemen are process engineers, largely.
Mr. THOMAS. What kind of process engineers?

Mr. NELSON. Chemical engineers, physicists, mechanical and electrical engineers.

Mr. THOMAS. Do you have any old-time construction people down there who have been in the business for 25 or 30 years?

Mr. NELSON. Yes, sir. We have those on the construction side. But the people I am speaking of now are working with du Pont in establishing process and operating requirements and design criteria. They review this data from week to week. We are currently advised as progress develops, and the next step is my engineering branch, where we have 15 civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers, reviews in the same manner with du Pont's design engineers the work from day to day.

Mr. THOMAS. I am no engineer or architect, but I know a good many engineers and architects. With about 200 buildings, and I presume you have not 10 percent of them constructed; have you? Mr. NELSON. No, sir.

CONSTRUCTION ECONOMIES TO BE ACHIEVED

Mr. THOMAS. You can go in there and review those plans and specifications and cut them down anywhere from 15 to 25 percent. You can take this off, take that off, and when you get through you can come up with a utilitarian building that is going to serve your purpose and do just as good a job as the ones you have planned here now. I imagine you have not overlooked any details. There is an admonition in the independent offices appropriation bill for 1952, and it is no more than an admonition, but I understand the Commission kicked like a bay horse at it, which says your plans are to be of a utilitarian nature. It says:

No part of the foregoing appropriation shall be used for any new construction project until after the Commission shall have notified all architects and engineers involved that plans for such projects shall be purely utilitarian and without unnecessary refinements.

Gentlemen, you certainly can take those 259 structures there and cut down this construction cost from 10 percent to 20 percent. I have heard enough of the details of construction between Mr. Gore and you gentlemen to know that is very obvious.

Now let us get busy right here, and see how much we can reduce these estimates. If you cannot reduce them, we are going to reduce them for you.

Mr. NELSON. This action has been taken

Mr. THOMAS (continuing). Because you have far too much frills and fads in there, talking about locomotives, signal towers, and fixing up the land down there against erosion. Of course, that is all very necessary if we are figuring on going in business for the next 100 years, but I do not know that the taxpayers can last that long the way these estimates are going up and up.

Give us some detailed examples of where you folks have gone in there and in the good old ordinary fasion had a knock-down, drag-out fight to make an effort toward reducing the plans and specifications, knocking this off, reducing a contractor's estimate here, and lowering it there. You know lawyers and investigators have to work together sort of like architects, engineers, and contractors. I have seen them get in a room and argue and fight for 2 or 3 hours, but when they get through they usually come out with something that is going to help win the case.

How do you handle your engineers and architects and contractors and subcontractors?

ROLE OF CONTRACTOR IN ACHIEVING ECONOMIES

Mr. NELSON. We follow this work with du Pont's engineering department from day to day, as I say, with my 15-odd engineers, who review the design. If we find something

Mr. THOMAS. You do not think for a minute if du Pont was spending its own money it would miss its guess by 100 or 150 percent on this construction cost? If they did, there would not be a single architect and engineer working for du Pont tomorrow. They would be out on the streets looking for jobs.

Mr. Cook. This is the first time we have been in a position and the first time du Pont has been in a position to make a realistic estimate. The first two estimates were prepared on incomplete preliminary information by the Commission prior to site selection and prior to the submission of this estimate by du Pont. The site selection was made on November 28, 1950, right of entry was obtained on January 25, 1951; and the first construction on the site, temporary construction facilities, was started January 31, 1951.

Mr. THOMAS. Of course, the construction was not originated and planned to fit the site. You have about 250,000 acres there. So that did not prevent du Pont during those ir tervening months from August last year up until January of this year from doing some figuring. And had they been figuring to spend their own money, they would have done a whole lot of figuring. You can bet your bottom dollar on that.

Mr. Cook. But before you can make the original estimate, you have to have the scope defined; you have to have the requirements known; you have to have the site lay-out made and have to have the basic information on the various facilities, even though they are only 10 percent complete on the over-all design.

NUMBER OF ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS ENGAGED

Mr. THOMAS. How many architects and engineers does Mr. du Pont have down there?

Mr. NELSON. They have about 400 to 500 in Wilmington where the design is handled. tracted to others.

architects ard engineers Much of this is subcon

Mr. THOMAS. Do they have 400 or 500, or between 400 and 500? Mr. NELSON. It varies from day to day. I should guess it is about 500 now.

Mr. THOMAS. That is in du Pont's office at Wilmington?

Mr. NELSON. That is right.

Mr. THOMAS. How many architects and engineers do they have on the site?

Mr. NELSON. Of course, they are construction people at the siteconstruction engineers. I should guess at the moment

Mr. THOMAS. Of course, the Commission is paying the salaries and expenses of the 500 architects and engineers for du Pont.

Mr. NELSON. They are short of people at the present time to keep up with the design, as a matter of fact.

[blocks in formation]

Mr. BOYER. The figure he gave you does not include all of the subcontractors' architects and engineers that are working at du Pont's. Mr. THOMAS. You mean there are more than 500?

Mr. BOYER. Yes. I recall the du Pont people answered a similar question to that that I asked them about 2 months ago. At that time the figure they quoted, I believe, was between 1,200 and 1,300 architect-engineers. When you are designing a project that costs a billion dollars, it calls for a great deal of engineering and design work. Mr. THOMAS. You mean at present it is one billion two. Mr. BOYER. All right. I stand corrected.

Mr. Cook. The figure Mr. Nelson gave covers du Pont's engineering group alone. They in turn have subcontracted portions of the work to other architect-engineers and specialized engineering firms, and the total figure Mr. Boyer gave you covers all of those firms.

Mr. THOMAS. What fee do you allow du Pont, Mr. Nelson, or allow to du Pont's subcontractors? How do you arrive at the fee?

Mr. NELSON. We have regular fee policies or fee curves which we always follow throughout the Commission, which give the maximum fee. It may be less, but it cannot be more. This is pretty well established and set.

Mr. THOMAS. Would you mind letting us take a peep at it and see what it looks like?

Mr. Cook. The Commission has a fee manual that covers fees paid to architect-engineers of construction contractors. The fees are based upon and vary with the size of the job, the magnitude and complexity of the job; so that for a given job

Mr. THOMAS. So the bigger the job and the more complex it is, the bigger the fee?

Mr. Cook. The bigger the job, the smaller the fee is. That is the way the fee actually works percentagewise. In other words, for the smaller jobs the fee in percent of the total is greater than it is for the larger jobs.

REVIEW MADE OF ENGINEER PLANS

Mr. THOMAS. What restraint does the Atomic Energy Commission or its employees have over those architect-engineers that are drawing those plans and specifications? What is done by the Commission to supervise their work and say "Cut this out. Maybe we can save a little here and save a little there by reducing this and reducing that"? Mr. NELSON. We do that, and the plans are not used until we sign and approve them-the basic plans.

Mr. THOMAS. How many plans and specifications of the architectsengineers have you reduced or turned down? Do you have samples of some you turned down?

Mr. NELSON. I do not have any samples. We turn down on an average, I should guess-we get half a dozen basic plans per day; we always have additional questions and in some cases turn down some one of those almost every day. It may not be a turn-down; it may be a request for additional justification or information.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Boyer, how much do you think you can save on those 259 buildings you are going to construct by going in there and reviewing those plans, cutting this out, cutting that out, without hurting the efficiency of the operation one bit? I know it can be done, and you do, too.

« PreviousContinue »