The U.S. Department of Justice announced this week that the federal contractor Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, or HMIS, will pay $3.45 million to settle fraud allegations. According to the settlement agreement, the contractor illegally idled workers for parts of their shifts, but charged taxpayers for all of it over several years. In a press release, the U.S. Department of Justice said HMIS knowingly submitted false claims for the payment of those hours.
HMIS works to provide critical services to the Hanford site. According to Hanford.gov, “HMIS enables cleanup by providing services, including adequate and reliable water, power, road maintenance, information technology, safeguards and security, sitewide safety standards, training and countless more integrated services and deliverables across the Hanford Site.”
In an emailed statement, HMIS reiterated its settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, and said it had no further comment.
The U.S. Department of Energy did not provide comment before publication.
Wasting time
HMIS workers were instructed not to complete their jobs because work orders often weren’t ready. The workers still recorded full shifts, while instead, according to the federal complaint, some workers would watch movies, like the 1998 film “There’s Something about Mary,” or would on occasion take naps.
“HMIS managers not only accepted and condoned the entry of false time entries, they actively facilitated it,” the complaint states.
Fire systems
Nikolas Peterson, head of Hanford Challenge, a watchdog organization based in Seattle, said the case was brought forward by a whistleblower named Bradley Keever. Keever was worried about fire suppression systems not being maintained by his company.
“If I lived in the Tri-Cities, I would be demanding that the Department of Energy show their homework and prove that the fire systems work at Hanford,” Peterson said.
Peterson said his organization is continuing to monitor fire suppression systems at Hanford, but he said he’s not convinced that delayed maintenance has been resolved — meaning some Hanford fire systems could clog or not work in an emergency.
Ongoing
According to the DOJ press release, the falsified recordkeeping happened between Aug. 17, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2025. The DOJ investigation into these claims also took several years.
“HMIS has further admitted in the settlement agreement that, at times, it did not schedule or assign sufficient work to be performed by its personnel,” the press release stated.
Keever worked with the DOJ for years to bring the case to light. He will be paid $793,500 and will be able to recoup his attorney fees from HMIS.
“They did not want to sit around … and so it was very frustrating for them not to be out in the field doing what they needed to do,” said Richard Condit, a partner with Mehri & Skalet, the law firm that represented the whistleblower.
“This resolution shows our continuing commitment to fighting fraud at Hanford and to ensuring that those tasked with the responsibility of essential environmental cleanup do not abuse our trust in them,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Serrano in a press release. “I am grateful that HMIS ultimately did the right thing by admitting its conduct and paying back twice what it took from the taxpayers.”
Hanford is where the federal government made plutonium for bombs during World War II and the Cold War. Now, the federal government spends billions each year to clean up the site’s leftovers from plutonium production.
