There were no confirmed cases Friday of COVID-19 infections within the Department of Energy’s nuclear complex, covering both federal employees and contractors, based on public information as well as inquiries with industry sources.
The Energy Department confirmed this week a staffer at its Forrestal Building headquarters in Washington, D.C., tested positive for the novel coronavirus 2019. The staffer has been on leave since March 3. The agency has not identified the office in which the employee works.
An email distributed among agency employees and some contractors this week indicates two employees of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management were tested for COVID-19 after attending a nuclear waste and cleanup industry conference last week in Phoenix. Organizers of the annual Waste Management Symposia, which drew nearly 2,100 people, have said two attendees are being tested, and they hope to know results for both by Monday. In a Friday email, WMS organizers said have not been informed of any other participants planning COVID testing.
A slew of employees from the Energy Department and other federal agencies, including Senior Advisor for Environmental Management William (Ike) White and several EM site managers, were among speakers and panelists at the event.
Meanwhile, cleanup work is proceeding as normally as possible at 16 Cold War and Manhattan Project sites overseen by Environmental Management — given there is a national pandemic and Americans are being urged to stay home.
Some calls and emails to sources around the DOE nuclear weapons complex found no indications of high absenteeism from remediation and nuclear waste management jobs.
At the same time, one industry contractor said Thursday maintaining work routines would become more difficult the longer the national emergency lasts. Remediation crews might start saying, “’The government says people should stay home. Why are we still working?” the source said.
Thousands of federal and contractor employees work at the nuclear cleanup locations – the Hanford Site in Washington state alone has a workforce of about 9,000. The Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which houses both Environmental Management and National Nuclear Security Administrations operations, has a total workforce of about 11,000.
At some point, the outbreak could force the Office of Environmental Management to temporarily cut the numbers of workers on-site to those needed to maintain minimum safety. Each location would define that somewhat differently, the source added.
This situation is more chaotic than, for example, a forest fire near a national laboratory, a second industry contractor said Friday. There is no clear end in sight, and apparent safe areas are difficult to determine, he added. Some radioactive operations at NNSA and Environmental Management sites are developing a metric to determine the circumstances under which they would shut down. This could be based upon the number of cases within the state or the number of cases at a given site, the source said.
“We are not going to have any meetings in our office until further notice,” the source said. Any meeting of more than a couple people will be conducted remotely, he added.
Hanford Employees Tested, Buildings Disinfected
At Hanford, multiple employees are being tested for the virus, according to a website for the complex. In addition, buildings where the potentially infected staffers worked are being disinfected.
To date, the former plutonium production complex has not publicly reported any positive tests among its federal and contract workers. Based on individual posts during the week it appears at least three or more have undergone testing. One of those is a staffer for support services contractor Mission Support Alliance, who was apparently tested as a precaution.
A Thursday update said a Hanford employee was undergoing testing and that the agency had restricted access to offices on the fourth floor at 2420 Stevens Center in nearby Richland, Wash., pending disinfection. The building houses space for both DOE branches that oversee Hanford: the Office of River Protection and Richland Operations Office. Staff assigned to this office building do not need to be quarantined, but should monitor themselves for symptoms, according the notice.
The repopened sites at Hanford include the MO-195 office building, as well as the MO-280 and MO-3103 buildings.
The Savannah River Site said Wednesday it is activating its Infectious Disease Response Team to help navigate the COVID-19 crisis.
The team will operate around the clock and will hold “daily leadership calls” in an effort to limit potential impact of the novel coronavirus on the 310-square-mile, 11,000-employee federal installation. The team is designed to coordinate SRS response to COVID-19.
“The Savannah River Site is fully operational,” according to the statement distributed from facility management to employees. “Currently, SRS has no cases of COVID-19.”
The federal facility is following protocols issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control on safety measures such as handwashing and “social distancing,” according to the memo.
While the Savannah River Site is employing telecommuting to the extent possible, “the important missions of SRS [such as nuclear cleanup and national defense] Is the material in parentheses from the memo or added in? In either case, add a paragraph afterward briefly describing operations at SRS. must continue and for much of our work, telework is simply not a viable option,” according to the statement. The memo does not specify which staff members are allowed to telecommute.
Like Hanford, the Savannah River Site expects to disinfect more structures due to the public health emergency. The site is putting contracts in place “to handle more extensive sanitizing [of buildings] should it be needed,” according
As of Friday, there were more than 15,000 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus in the United States, including 201 deaths, according to the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention.
Aside from web pages and social media posts, hard data on the state of nuclear cleanup during the outbreak is difficult to ascertain. Most Environmental Management sites referred questions to the agency’s central public affairs office under Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette. “Big DOE,” as it is sometimes called, did not reply to several emails and phone calls for comment.
Brouillette said Sunday the agency is following a federal directive that only “mission-critical’ travel take place until further notice. As cases of infection spread, the increased travel restriction is being implemented by the White House Office of Management and Budget, the energy secretary said in a memo. Only critical travel can be approved at the discretion of top management.
The Energy Department had already restricted most foreign travel and urged department managers to reconsider large gatherings in the face of the coronavirus spread. Public tours of Environmental Management facilities, and most citizen task force or advisory board meetings, have been suspended until further notice.
Brouillette said in his memo that DOE employees should take home their federal laptop and other telework tools nightly, just in case. The DOE has also set up a hotline (202-586-COVD; 202-586-2683) and email address ([email protected]) for reporting potential or confirmed COVID-19 cases.
