There will be no slowdown in nuclear cleanup next autumn when the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management gives up its landlord role at the Savannah River Site, a citizens group heard Tuesday.
“What we are not transferring are any of the EM [environmental management] missions,” Michael Budney, operations manager for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) at the site, said at a meeting of the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board.
The Citizens Advisory Board itself will stay under EM and any environmental questions will stay with EM even after DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) takes over as landlord in October 2024, Budney said.
Amy Boyette, Savannah River public affairs manager, told the panel EM is shooting for a full briefing on the transition in November and hopes to have NNSA participate.
After the transition, “[a]round 10% of our budget” will move to NNSA from EM, Budney said. NNSA will take over responsibility for the site’s security and operations contracts, including oversight of the common infrastructure for water, sewer and electricity, he said. The weapons stockpile steward will also manage the K-Area complex.
Any environmental permits being transferred to NNSA are “standard industrial permits” needed to operate in South Carolina, Budney said. This includes water discharges permits.
The Office of Environmental Management is now authorized for the equivalent of about 260 full-time federal people at the site, and 85 of the slots, many of them vacant, will move to NNSA, Budney said.
Advisory board member Charles Hilton, however, still fears cleanup could suffer after NNSA takes charge.
“EM has been very, very open with us,” Hilton said. “I’m concerned that I’ve never seen anybody from NNSA around this table.”
The transition plan was signed Sept. 13 by EM and NNSA heads William “Ike” White and Jill Hruby, and shared with Savannah River employees Monday, Boyette said.
While EM has been the federal office in charge of Savannah River since the 1990s, NNSA is doing more work there these days. That trend will accelerate as NNSA moves toward plutonium pit production at Savannah River.
