With virtually all federal employees mandated to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board envisions a staff return-to-workplace date of Jan. 24, a spokesperson for the board said this week.
“[P]lans may change, but this is our current plan,” Tara Tadlock, the associate director for board operations at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), said in an email this week.
With most employees vaccinated, the DNFSB joins the Department of Energy and other federal agencies in crafting return-to-work on-site plans. DOE’s chief of staff last week sent out a memo saying that the agency will start its phased return to physical worksites in January with the process expected to be completed in February.
The DNFSB is a fraction of DOE’s size, having only about 100 staff members compared with thousands at DOE.
“Agency leadership is in the process of finalizing an updated Telework Directive, which will lay out telework policy and provide important flexibilities for the workforce,” Tadlock said.
Most DNFSB employees have worked remotely since March 2020 as COVID-19 started to spread across the United States. An updated COVID-19 response and recovery plan should be posted to the DNFSB website in the near future, Tadlock said.
The defense board is an independent agency within the executive branch charged with advising the secretary of energy on safety matters at nuclear defense facilities. While it lacks regulatory power, the DNFSB can make written recommendations to the energy secretary, who must then publicly respond.
Meanwhile, the board announced Monday it has appointed Eric Richardson as a resident inspector at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
In this role, Richardson will advise DNFSB on the safety conditions of facilities at federal complex near the Georgia state line, the board said in a press release. Richardson will also participate in technical reviews and serve as a liaison with Savannah River Site management, the public and state and local governments.
Since 2015, Richard has been employed by Fluor-led operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, where he worked with the Savannah River Tritium Enterprise at the federal site.
Before Savannah River, Richardson spent 12 years in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear submarine officer. He holds an undergraduate degree from Penn State and a master of engineering management degree from Old Dominion University. Richardson is one of three resident inspectors for DNFSB at Savannah River, the other two being Leigh Lin and Zachary McCabe.
